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THE ONE I KNEW THE
BEST OF ALL

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THE SMALL PERSON AND THE SECRETAIRE.

THE ONE I KNEW THE
BEST OF ALL

H flfcemorp of tbe /IFMnfc of a Cbtlfc

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

ILLUSTRATED BY

REGINALD B. BIRCH

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1893

TROW DIRECTORY

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK

DM5CARD

PREFACE

I SHOULD feel a serious delicacy in present-
ing to the world a sketch so autobiographical as
this if I did not feel myself absolved from any
charge of the bad taste of personality by the fact
that I believe I might fairly entitle it " The Story
of any Child with an Imagination." My impres-
sion is that the Small Person differed from a world
of others only in as far as she had more or less
imagination than other little girls. I have so often
wished that I could see the minds of young things
with a sight stronger than that of very interested
eyes, which can only see from the outside. There
must be so many thoughts for which child courage
and child language have not the exact words. So,
remembering that there was one child of whom I
could write from the inside point of view, and
with certain knowledge, I began to make a little
sketch of the one I knew the best of all. It was

viii Preface

only to be a short sketch in my first intention, but
when I besran it I found so much to record which

seemed to me amusing and illustrative, that the
short sketch became a long one. After all, it was
not myself about whom I wras being diffuse, but a
little unit of whose parallels there are tens of
thousands. The Small Person is gone to that un-
discoverable far-away land where other Small
Persons have emigrated — the land to whose re-
gretted countries there wandered, some years ago,
two little fellows, with picture faces and golden
love-locks, whom I have mourned and longed for
ever since, and whose going — with my kisses on
their little mouths — has left me forever a sadder
woman, as all other mothers are sadder, whatso-
ever the dearness of the maturer creature left be-
hind to bear the same name and smile with eyes
not quite the same. As I might write freely
about them, so I feel I may write freely about
her.

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.

MAY, 1892.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

The One I Knew the Best of All,

PAGE

CHAPTER II.

The Flower Book and Testament, .

CHAPTER /I/.

The Back Garden of Eden,

PAGE

x Contents

CHAPTER IV.
Literature and tbe Doll, 44

CHAPTER V.
Islington Square, 70

CHAPTER VI.
A Confidence Betrayed, 90

CHAPTER VII.
Tbe Secretaire, 709

CHAPTER VIII.
Tbe Party, 729

CHAPTER IX.
Tbe Wedding, . 142

CHAPTER X.
Tbe Strange Thing, 756

CHAPTER XI.
"Mamma" — and tbe First One, . . . . ij6

Contents xi

CHAPTER XII.

PAGE

" Edith Somerville" — and Raw Turnips, . . 208

CHAPTER XIII.

Christopher Columbus, ...... 228

CHAPTER XIV.

The Dry ad Days, 257

CHAPTER XV.

" My Object is Remuneration," .... 286

CHAPTER XVI.

And So She Did, 31 3

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The Small Person and the Secretaire, . Frontispiece
Vignette, ........ Contents ix

" / am not holding her" She Said, . .... 8

" Yes" He Said, " / should have to pick you up and carry

you at once to prison" ...... 20

When She Stood by Her Grandmamma's Knee, . .

" Tha needn't say nowt about it," Said Emma, . . 37

She Confessed Herself to Him, ...... 41

As She Brutally Lashed a Cheerfully Hideous Black

Gutta-percha Doll, ....... jj

" Sitting on the Lamp Post" ...... 72

But the Girl Walked Calmly Before Him, 83

" Is it a very new one ? " They Asked, 98

xiv List of Illustrations

PAGE

The Three Unrestrainable Small Persons — in Various

Stages of Undress, ....... 7j6

" Will you dance this waltz with me?' .... 139

The two Pink Silk Frocks lay upon the Bed, . . .

She put out Her Hand and Touched the Unsmiling
Cheek, .........

And She Bent Over and Kissed Her Round Check, . .

" What is Improving, Mamma ?" . . . . .

She Laughed a great deal as She was Doing It, . . 202

" // — why, it is so clever / ' . . . . . . 206

The Woes and Raptures of Edith Somerville, . . . 220

The Poor were Starving, ....... 2jg

The First Bales of Cotton, ...... 242

The Small Person Looked upon her with Deference and

Yearning, ......... 245

" Good-by" He Said. " / hope you will like America," . 248
" Oh, dear ! Now Fm going to America," . . . 250
{i I have found a Pimpernel !' 259

List of Illustrations xv

PAGE

// Became one of her Pleasures to Watch a Bird Light

upon a Low Branch, ....... 271

With the Little Cat Curled up in her Left Arm, . . 288

They Chased about the Warm, Yellowing Woods like

Wild Things, 309

" Thirty-five dollars" He Said, Staring at Her, . . 324

THE ONE I KNEW THE BEST OF ALL

A MEMORY OF THE MIND OF A CHILD

CHAPTER I

The One I Knew the Best of All

I HAD every opportunity for knowing her
well, at least. We were born on the same day, we
learned to toddle about together, we began our
earliest observations of the world we lived in at
the same period, we made the same mental re-
marks on people and things, and reserved to our-
selves exactly the same rights of private personal
opinion.

I have not the remotest idea of what she looked
like. She belonged to an era when photography
was not as advanced an art as it is to-day, and no
picture of her was ever made. It is a well-authen-
ticated fact that she was auburn-haired and rosy,
and I can testify that she was curly, because one
of my earliest recollections of her emotions is a
memory of the momentarily maddening effect of a
sharp, stinging jerk of the comb when the nurse

2 The One I Knew the Best of All

was absent-minded or maladroit. That she was
also a plump little person I am led to believe, in
consequence of the well-known joke of a ribald boy
cousin and a disrespectful brother, who averred
that when she fell she " bounced " like an india-
rubber ball. For the rest, I do not remember
what the looking-glass reflected back at her,
though I must have seen it. It might, conse-
quently, be argued that on such occasions there
were so many serious and interesting problems to
be attended to that a reflection in the looking-
glass was an unimportant detail.

In those early days I did not find her personally
interesting — in fact, I do not remember regarding
her as a personality at all. It was the people about
her, the things she saw, the events which made up
her small existence, which were absorbing, excit-
ing, and of the most vital and terrible importance
sometimes. It was not until I had children of my
own, and had watched their small individualities
forming themselves, their large imaginations giv-
ing proportions and values to things, that I began
to remember her as a little Person ; and in going
back into her past and reflecting on certain details
of it and their curious effects upon her, I found
interest in her and instruction, and the most
serious cause for tender deep reflection on her as
a thing touching on that strange, awful problem
of a little soul standing in its newness in the great

The One I Knew the Best of All 3

busy, tragic world of life, touched for the first
time by everything that passes it, and never
touched without some sign of the contact being
left upon it.

What I remember most clearly and feel most
serious is one thing above all : it is that I have no
memory of any time so early in her life that she
was not a distinct little individual. Of the time
when she was not old enough to formulate opi-
nions quite clearly to herself I have no recollec-
tion, and I can remember distinctly events which
happened before she was three years old. The
first incident which appears to me as being inter-
esting, as an illustration of what a baby mind is
doing, occurred a week or so after the birth of

•

her sister, who was two years younger than her-
self. It is so natural, so almost inevitable, that
even the most child-loving among us should find
it difficult to realize constantly that a mite of
three or four, tumbling about, playing with india-
rubber dogs and with difficulty restrained from
sucking the paint off Noah, Shem, Ham, and Ja-
phet, not to mention the animals, is a person, and
that this person is ten thousand times more sensi-
tive to impression than one's self, and that hearing
and seeing one, this person, though he or she may
not really understand, will be likely, in intervals
of innocent destruction of small portable articles,
to search diligently in infant mental space until

4 The One I Knew the Best of All

he or she has found an explanation of affairs, to
be pigeon-holed for future reference. And yet I
can most solemnly declare that such was the
earliest habit of that " One I knew the best of all."

One takes a fat, comfortable little body on one's
knee and begins to tell it a story about " a fairy '
or "a doggie " or "a pussy." And the moment
the story begins the questions begin also. And
with my recollection of the intense little Bogie
whom I knew so well and who certainly must
have been a most e very-day-looking little person-
age, giving no outward warning of preternatural
alertness and tragic earnestness, my memory leads
me to think that indeed it is not a trifle to be suf-
ficiently upright and intelligent to answer these
questions exactly as one should. This first inci-
dent, which seems to me to denote how early a
tiny mind goes through distinct processes of
thought, is a very clear memory to me.

I see a comfortable English bedroom, such as
would to-day seem old-fashioned without being
ancient enough to be picturesque. I remember
no articles of furniture in the room but a rather
heavy four-posted carved mahogany bed, hung
with crimson damask, ornamented with heavy
fringe and big cords and tassels, a chair by this
bedside — I think it was an arm-chair covered
with chintz — and a footstool. This was called " a
buffet," and rhymed with Miss Muffet eating her

The One I Kneiv the Best of All 5

curds and whey. In England Miss Muffet sat on
" a buffet," on the blood-curdling occasion when

" There came a big spider
And sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away."

This buffet was placed upon the hearth-rug be-
fore the fire, and a very small being was sitting
upon it, very conscious, in a quiet way, of her
mamma lying on the crimson-draped bed, and the;
lady friend who was sitting in the chair by her,
discussing their respective new babies. But most
of all was the Small Person on the buffet conscious
of their own personal new baby who was being
taken care of by a nurse just near her.

Perhaps the interest of such recollections is
somewhat added to by the fact that one can only
recall them by episodes, and that the episodes
seem to appear without any future or any past.
Not the faintest shadow of the new baby seems
to appear upon the camera, up to this moment,
of the buffet, and I have no remembrance of any
mental process which led to the Small Person's
wishing to hold it on her knee. Perhaps it was
a sudden inspiration.

But she did wish to hold it, and notified as
much, apparently with sufficient clearness, to the
nurse.

The shadow of the nurse has no name and

6 The One I Knew the Best of All

no special individuality. She was only a figure
known as " The Nurse."

But she impresses me in these days as having
been quite definite in her idea that Persons not
yet three years old were not to be trusted en-
tirely with the new-born, however excellent their
intentions were.

How the Small Person expressed herself in
those days I do not know at all. Before three
years articulation is not generally perfect, but if
hers was not I know she was entirely unaware
of her inadequacies. She thought she spoke just
as other people did, and I never remember her
pronunciation being corrected. I can recall,
with perfect distinctness, however, what she
tJwught she expressed and what her hearers
seemed to understand her to say.

It was in effect something like this :

" I want to hold the New Baby on my knee. '

" You are too little," said the Nurse.

" No, I am not too little. The New Baby is
little, and I am on the buffet, and I will hold her
tight if you will put her on my knee."

" She would slip off, I am afraid."

" No, I will hold her tight with both arms, just
like you do. Please give her to me." And the
Small Person spread her small knees.

I don't know how long the discussion lasted,
but the Nurse was a good-natured person, and at

The One I Knew the Best of All 7

last she knelt down upon the hearth-rug by the
buffet, holding the white-robed new baby in her
arms, and amiably pretended to place it in the
short arms and on the tiny knees, while she was
really supporting it herself.

" There," she said. " Now she is on your
knee." She thought she had made it all right,
but she was gravely mistaken.

" But I want to hold her myself!' said the Small
Person.

" You are holding her," answered the Nurse,
cheerfully. " What a big girl to be holding the
New Baby just like a grown-up lady."

The Small Person looked at her with serious
candor.

" I am not holding her," she said. " You are
holding her."

That the episode ended without the Small Per-
son either having held the New Baby, or being
deceived into fancying she held it, is as clear a
memory to me as if it had occurred yesterday ;
and the point of the incident is that after all the
years that have passed I remember with equal
distinctness the thoughts which were in the Small
Person's mind as she looked at the Nurse and
summed the matter up, while the woman imag-
ined she was a baby not capable of thinking at all.

It has always interested me to recall this be-
cause it was so long ago, and while it has not

8 The One I Knew the Best of All

faded out at all, and I see the mental attitude as
definitely as I see the child and the four-post bed
with its hangings, I recognize that she was too

young to have had in her vocabulary the words
to put her thoughts and mental arguments into-
and yet they were there, as thoughts and mental

The One I Knew the Best of All 9

arguments are there to-day — and after these many
years I can write them in adult words without
the slightest difficulty. I should like to have a
picture of her eyes and the expression of her baby
face as she looked at the nurse and thought these
things, but perhaps her looks w^ere as inarticulate
as her speech.

" I am very little," she thought. " I am so little
that you think I do not know that you are pre-
tending that I am holding the new baby, while
really it is you who are holding it. But I do know.
I know it as well as you, though I am so little
and you are so big that you always hold babies.
But I cannot make you understand that, so it is
no use talking. I want the baby, but you think I
shalMet it fall. I am sure I shall not. But you
are a grown-up person and I am a little child, and
the big people can always have their own way."

I do not remember any rebellion against an idea
of injustice. All that comes back to me in the
form of a mental attitude is a perfect realization
of the immense fact that people who were grown
up could do what they chose, and that there was
no appeal against their omnipotence.

It may be that this line of thought was an in-
fant indication of a nature which developed later
as one of its chief characteristics, a habit of ad-
justing itself silently to the inevitable, which was
frequently considered to represent indifference,

io The One I Knew the Best of All

but which merely evolved itself from private con-
clusions arrived at through a private realization of
the utter uselessness of struggle against the Fixed.
The same curiosity as to the method in which
the thoughts expressed themselves to the small
mind devours me when I recall the remainder of
the bedroom episode, or rather an incident of the

same morning.

The lady visitor who sat in the chair was a
neighbor, and she also was the proprietor of a
new baby, though her baby was a few weeks
older than the very new one the Nurse held.

She was the young mother of two or three
children, and had a pretty sociable manner toward
tiny things. The next thing I see is that the
Small Person had been called up to her and stood
by the bed in an attitude of modest decorum, be-
ing questioned and talked to.

I have no doubt she was asked how she liked
the New Baby, but I do not remember that or
anything but the serious situation which arose
as the result of one of the questions. It was the
first social difficulty of the Small Person — the first
confronting of the overwhelming problem of how
to adjust perfect truth to perfect politeness.

Language seems required to mentally confront
this problem and try to settle it, and the Small
Person cannot have had words, yet it is certain
that she confronted and wrestled with it.

The One I Knew the Best of All 1 1

" And what is your New Baby's name to be ? "
the lady asked.

" Edith," was the answer.

" That is a pretty name," said the lady. " I
have a new baby, and I have called it Eleanor.
Is not that a pretty name ? '

In this manner it was — simple as it may seem-
that the awful problem presented itself. That it
seemed awful — actually almost unbearable — is an
illustration of the strange, touching sensitiveness
of the new-born butterfly soul just emerged from
its chrysalis- -the impressionable sensitiveness
which it seems so tragic that we do not always
remember^

For some reason — it would be impossible to tell
what- -the Small Person did not think Eleanor
was a pretty name. On strictly searching the in-
nermost recesses of her diminutive mentality she
found that she could not think it a pretty name.
She tried, as if by muscular effort, and could not.
She thought it was an ugly name ; that was the
anguish of it. And here was a lady, a nice lady, a
friend with whom her own mamma took tea, a
kind lady, who had had the calamity to have her
own newest baby christened by an ugly name.
How could anyone be rude and hard-hearted
enough to tell her what she had done — that her
new baby would always have to be called some-
thing ugly ? She positively quaked with mis-

12 The One I Knew the Best of All

ery. She stood quite still and looked at the poor
nice lady helplessly without speaking. The lady
probably thought she was shy, or too little to
answer readily or really have any opinion on the
subject of names. Mistaken lady : how mistaken,
I can remember. The Small Person was wres-
tling with her first society problem, and trying to
decide what she must do with it.

" Don't you think it is a pretty name ? ' the
visitor went on, in a petting, coaxing voice, pos-
sibly with a view to encouraging her. " Don't
you like it ? '

The Small Person looked at her with yearning
eyes. She could not say " No ' blankly. Even
then there lurked in her system the seeds of a
feeling which, being founded on a friendly wish
to be humane which is a virtue at the outset,
has increased with years, until it has become a
weakness which is a vice. She could not say a
thing she did not mean, but she could not say
brutally the unpleasant thing she did mean. She
ended with a pathetic compromise.

" I don't think," she faltered— " I don't think—
it is — as pretty — as Edith."

And then the grown-up people laughed gayly
at her as if she were an amusing little thing,
and she was kissed and cuddled and petted.
And nobody suspected she had been thinking
anything at all, any more than they imagined that

The One I Knew the Best of All 13

she had been translating their remarks into
ancient Greek. I have a vivid imagination as
regards children, but if I had been inventing a
story of a child, it would not have occurred to
me to imagine such a mental episode in such a
very tiny person. But the vividness of my recol-
lection of this thing has been a source of interest
and amusement to me through so many mature
years that I feel it has a certain significance as
impressing upon one's mind a usually unrealized
fact.

When she was about four years old a strange
and serious event happened in the household
of the Small Person, an event which might have
made a deep and awesome impression on her
but for two facts. As it was, a deep impression
was made, but its effect was not of awfulness, but
of unexplainable mystery. The thing which hap-
pened was that the father of the Small Person
died. As she belonged to the period of Nurses
and the Nursery she did not feel very familiar
with him, and did not see him very often.
" Papa," in her mind, was represented by a gentle-
man who had curling brown hair and who laughed
and said affectionately funny things. These things
gave her the impression of his being a most agree-
able relative, but she did not know that the funny
things were the jocular remarks with which good-
natured maturity generally salutes tender years.

14 The One I Knew the Best of All

He was intimately connected with jokes about
cakes kept in the dining-room sideboard, and with
amiable witticisms about certain very tiny glasses
of sherry in which she and her brothers had drunk
his health and her mamma's, standing by the table
after dinner, when there were nuts and other
fruits adorning it. These tiny glasses, which
must really have been liqueur glasses, she thought
had been made specially small for the accommo-
dation of persons from the Nursery.

When " papa " became ill the Nursery was evi-
dently kept kindly and wisely in ignorance of his
danger. The Small Person's first knowledge of
it seemed to reach her through an interesting ad-
venture. She and her brothers and the New
Baby, who by this time was quite an old baby,
were taken away from home. In a very pretty
countrified Public Park not far away from where
she lived there was a house where people could
stay and be made comfortable. The Park still ex-
ists, but I think the house has been added to and
made into a museum. At that time it appeared
to an infant imagination a very splendid and awe-
inspiring mansion. It seemed very wonderful
indeed to live in a house in the Park where
one was only admitted usually under the care of
Nurses who took one to walk. The park seemed
to become one's own private garden, the Refresh-
ment Room containing the buns almost part of

The One I Knew the Best of All 15

one's private establishment, and the Policemen,
after one's first awe of them was modified, to be-
come almost mortal men.

It was a Policeman who is the chief feature of
this period. He must have been an amiable Police-
man. I have no doubt he was quite a fatherly
Policeman, but the agonies of terror the One I
knew the best of all passed through in conse-
quence of his disposition to treat her as a joke,
are something never to be forgotten.

I can see now from afar that she was a little
person of the most law-abiding tendencies. I can
never remember her feeling the slightest inclina-
tion to break a known law of any kind. Her in-
ward desire was to be a good child. Without
actually formulating the idea, she had a standard
of her own. She did not want to be " naughty,"
she did not want to be scolded, she was peace-
loving and pleasure-loving, two things not com-
patible with insubordination. When she was
" naughty," it was because what seemed to her in-
justice and outrage roused her to fury. She had
occasional furies, but went no further.

When she was told that there were pieces of
grass on which she must not walk, and that on
the little boards adorning their borders the black
letters written said, " Trespassers will be prose-
cuted," she would not for worlds have set her
foot upon the green, even though she did not

1 6 The One I Knew the Best of All

know what u prosecuted ' meant. But when she
discovered that the Park Policemen who walked
up and down in stately solitude were placed by
certain awful authorities to " take up ' anybody
who trespassed, the dread that she might inadver-
tently trespass some day and be " taken up '
caused her blood to turn cold.

What an irate Policeman, rendered furious by
an outraged law, represented to her tender mind
I cannot quite clearly define, but I am certain that
a Policeman seemed an omnipotent power, Avith
whom the boldest would not dream of trifling,
and the sole object of whose majestic existence
was to bring to swift, unerring justice the juve-
nile law-breakers who in the madness of their
youth drew upon themselves the eagle glance of
his wrath, the awful punishment of justice being
to be torn shrieking from one's Mamma and in-
carcerated for life in a gloomy dungeon in the
bowels of the earth. This was what " Prison '
and being " taken up" meant.

It may be imagined, then, with what reverent
awe she regarded this supernatural being from
afar, clinging to her Nurse's skirts with positively
bated breath when he appeared ; how ostenta-
tiously she avoided the grass which must not be
trodden upon ; how she was filled with mingled
terror and gratitude when she discovered that he

even descended from his celestial heights to speak

The One I Knew the Best of All 17

to Nurses, actually in a jocular manner and with
no air of secreting an intention of pouncing upon
their charges and " taking them up ' in the very
wantonness of power.

I do not know through what means she reached
the point of being sufficiently intimate with a
Policeman to exchange respectful greetings with
him and even to indulge in timorous conversation.
The process must have been a very gradual one
and much assisted by friendly and mild advances
from the Policeman himself. I only know it came
about, and this I know through a recollection of
a certain eventful morning.

It was a beautiful morning, so beautiful that
even a Policeman might have been softened by
it. The grass which must not be walked upon
was freshest green, the beds of flowers upon
it were all in bloom. Perhaps the brightness of
the sunshine and the friendliness of nature em-
boldened the Small Person and gave her giant
strength.

How she got there I do not know, but she was
sitting on one of the Park benches at the edge of
the grass, and a Policeman — a real, august Police-
man— was sitting beside her.

Perhaps her Nurse had put her there for a mo-
ment and left her under the friendly official's care.
But I do not know. I only know she was there,
and so was he, and he was doing nothing alarm-

1 8 The One I Knew the Best of All

ing. The seat was one of those which have only
one piece of wood for a back and she was so little
that her short legs stuck out straight before her,
confronting her with short socks and plump pink
calf and small " ankle-strap ' shoes, while her
head was not high enough to rest itself against
the back, even if it had wished to.

It was this last fact which suggested to her
mind the possibility of a catastrophe so harrow-
ing that mere mental anguish forced her to ask
questions even from a minion of the law. She
looked at him and opened her lips half a dozen
times before she dared to speak, but the words
came forth at last :

" If anyone treads on the grass must you take
them up ? '

" Yes, I must." There is no doubt but that the
innocent fellow thought her and her question a
good joke.

" Would you have to take anyone up if they
went on the grass ? '

" Yes," with an air of much official sternness.
"Anyone"

She panted a little and looked at him appeal-
ingly. " Would you have to take me up if I went
on it ? ' Possibly she hoped for leniency because
he evidently did not object to her Nurse, and she
felt that such relationship might have a softening
influence.

The One I Knew the Best of All 19

" Yes," he said, " I should have to take you to
prison."

" But," she faltered, " but if I couldn't help it-
if I didn't go on it on purpose."

" You'd have to be taken to prison if you went
on it," he said. " You couldn't go on it without
knowing it."

She turned and looked at the back of the seat,
which was too high for her head to reach, and
which consequently left no support behind her
exceeding smallness.

" But — but," she said, " I am so little I might
fall through the back of this seat. If I was to fall
through on to the grass should you take me to
prison ? '

What dulness of his kindly nature — I feel sure
he was not an unkindly fellow — blinded the
Policeman to the terror and consternation which
must in some degree have expressed themselves
on her tiny face, I do not understand, but he
evidently saw nothing of them. I do not remem-
ber what his face looked like, only that it did not
wear the ferocity which would have accorded
with his awful words.

" Yes," he said, " I should have to pick you up
and carry you at once to prison."

She must have turned pale ; but that she sat
still without further comment, that she did not
burst into frantic howls of despair, causes one to

2O The One I Knew the Best of All

feel that even in those early days she was
governed by some rudimentary sense of dignity
and resignation to fate, for as she sat there, the
short legs in socks and
small black " ankle-straps "
confronting her, the mar-
row \vas dissolving in her
infant bones.

There is doubtless
suggestion as to the
limits and exag-
gerations of the

tender mind in the fact that this incident was an
awful one to her and caused her to waken in
her bed at night and quake with horror, while

The One I Knew the Best of All 21

the later episode of her hearing that " Poor Papa '
had died seemed only to be a thing- of mystery of
which there was so little explanation that it was
not terrible. This was without doubt because, to
a very young child's mind, death is an idea too
vague to grasp.

There came a day when someone carried her
into the bedroom where the crimson-draped four-
post bed was, and standing by its side held her in
her arms that she might look down at Papa lying
quite still upon the pillow. She only thought he
looked as if he were asleep, though someone said :
" Papa has gone to Heaven," and she was not
frightened, and looked down with quiet interest
and respect. A few years later the sight of a
child of her own age or near it, lying in his coffin,
brought to her young being an awed realization
of death, whose anguished intensity has never
wholly repeated itself ; but being held up in kind
arms to look down at " Poor Papa," she only
gazed without comprehension and without fear.

CHAPTER II

The Little Flower Book and the Brown Testament

I DO not remember the process by which she
learned to read or how long a time it took her.
There was a time when she sat on a buffet before
the Nursery fire — which was guarded by a tall
wire fender with a brass top — and with the as-
sistance of an accomplished elder brother a few
years her senior, seriously and carefully picked
out with a short, fat finger the capital letters
adorning the advertisement column of a news-

paper.

But from this time my memory makes a leap
over all detail until an occasion when she stood
by her Grandmamma's knee by this same tall
Nursery fender and read out slowly and with
dignity the first verse of the second chapter of
Matthew in a short, broad, little speckled brown
Testament with large print.

" When — Jesus- -was — born — in — Bethlehem-
of Judea," she read, but it is only this first verse I
remember.

Either just before or just after the accomplish-
ing of this feat she heard that she was three years

T/ie Flower Book and Testament 23

old. Possibly this fact was mentioned as notable
in connection with the reading, but to her it was a
fact notable principally because it was the first

time she remembered hearing that she was any
age at all and that birthdays were a feature of
human existence.

But though the culminating point of the learn-

24 The One I Knew the Best of All

ing to read was the Brown Testament, the process
of acquiring1 the accomplishment must have had
much to do with the " Little Flower Book."

In a life founded and formed upon books, one
naturally looks back with affection to the first
book one possessed. The one known as the " Lit-
tle Flower Book' was the first in the existence of
the One I knew the best of all.

No other book ever had such fascinations, none
ever contained such marvellous suggestions of
beauty and story and adventure. And yet it was
only a little book out of which one learned one's
alphabet.

But it was so beautiful. One could sit on a buf-
fet and pore over the pages of it for hours and
thrill with wonder and delight over the little pict-
ure which illustrated the fact that A stood for
Apple-blossom, C for Carnation, and R for Rose.
What would I not give to see those pictures now.
But I could not see them now as the Small Person
saw them then. I only wish I could. Such
lovely pictures ! So like real flowers ! As one
looked at each one of them there grew before
one's eyes the whole garden that surrounded it-
the very astral body of the beauty of it.

It was rather like the Brown Testament in form.
It was short and broad, and its type was large
and clear. The short page was divided in two ;
the upper half was filled with an oblong black

The Flower Book and Testament 25

background, on which there was a flower, and the
lower half with four lines of rhyme beginning
with the letter which was the one that " stood
for " the flower. The black background was an
inspiration, it made the flower so beautiful. I do
not remember any of the rhymes, though I have a
vague impression that they usually treated of
some moral attribute which the flower was sup-
posed to figuratively represent. In the days when
the Small Person was a child, morals were never
lost sight of ; no well-regulated person ever men-
tioned the Poppy, in writing for youth, without
calling it "flaunting5 or " gaudy;' the Violet,
without laying stress on its " modesty ; " the Rose,
without calling attention to its " sweetness," and
daring indeed would have been the individual
who would have referred to the Bee without call-
ing him " busy." Somehow one had the feeling
that the Poppy was deliberately scarlet from im-
pudence, that the Violet stayed up all night, as it
were, to be modest, that the Rose had invented
her own sweetness, and that the Bee would rather
perish than be an "idle butterfly" and not spend
every moment " improving each shining hour."
But we stood it very well. Nobody repined, but
I think one rather had a feeling of having been
born an innately vicious little person who needed
laboring with constantly that one might be made
merely endurable.

26 The One I Knew the Best of All

It never for an instant occurred to the Small
Person to resent the moral attributes of the flow-
ers. She was quite resigned to them, though my
impression is that she dwelt on them less fondly
than on the fact that the rose and her alphabetical
companions were such visions of beauty against
their oblong background of black.

The appearing of the Flower Book on the hori-
zon was an event in itself. Somehow the Small
Person had become devoured by a desire to pos-
sess a book and know how to read it. She was
the fortunate owner of a delightful and ideal
Grandmamma — not a modern grandmamma, but
one who might be called a comparatively " early
English ' grandmamma. She was stately but
benevolent ; she had silver-white hair, wore a cap
with a full white net border, and carried in her
pocket an antique silver snuff-box, not used as a
snuff-box, but as a receptacle for what was known
in that locality as " sweeties," one of which being
bestowed with ceremony was regarded as a re-
ward for all nursery virtues and a panacea for all
earthly ills. She was bounteous and sympathetic,
and desires might hopefully be confided to her.
Perhaps this very early craving for literature
amused her, perhaps it puzzled her a little. I re-
member that a suggestion was tentatively made
by her that perhaps a doll would finally be found
preferable to a book, but it was strenuously de-

The Flower Book and Testament 27

clared by the Small Person that a book, and only
a book, would satisfy her impassioned cravings.
A curious feature of the matter is that, though
dolls at a later period were the joy and the
greater part of the existence of the Small Person,
during her very early years I have absolutely no
recollection of a feeling for any doll, or indeed a
memory of any dolls existing for her.

So she was taken herself to buy the book. It
was a beautiful and solemn pilgrimage. Reason
suggests that it was not a long one, in considera-
tion for her tiny and brief legs, but to her it
seemed to be a journey of great length — princi-
pally past wastes of suburban brick-fields, which
for some reason seemed romantic and interesting
to her, and it ended in a tiny shop on a sort of
country road. I do not see the inside of the shop,
only the outside, which had one small window,
with toys and sweet things in glass jars. Per-
haps the Small Person was left outside to survey
these glories. This would seem not improbable,
as there remains no memory of the interior. But
there the Flower Book was bought (I wonder if
it really cost more than sixpence) ; from there it
was carried home under her arm, I feel sure.
Where it went to, or how it disappeared, I do not
know. For an ason it seemed to her to be the
greater part of her life, and then it melted away,
perhaps being absorbed in the Brown Testament

28 The One I Knew the Best of All

and the more dramatic interest of Herod and the
Innocents. From her introduction to Herod
dated her first acquaintance with the " villain " in
drama and romance, and her opinion of his con-
duct was, I am convinced, founded on something
much larger than mere personal feeling.

CHAPTER III

The Back Garden of Eden

I DO not know with any exactness where it
was situated. To-day I believe it is a place swept
out of existence. In those days I imagine it was
a comfortable, countrified house, with a big gar-
den round it, and fields and trees before and be-
hind it ; but if I were to describe it and its re-
sources and surroundings as they appeared to me
in the enchanted days when I lived there, I should
describe a sort of fairyland.

If one could only make a picture of the places
of the world as these Small Persons see them,
with their wondrous proportions and beauties-
the great heights and depths and masses, the gar-
den-walks which seem like stately avenues, the
rose-bushes which are jungles of bloom, the trees
adventurous brothers climb up and whose top-
most branches seem to lift them to the sky.
There was such a tree at the bottom of the gar-
den at Seedly. To the Small Person the garden
seemed a mile long. There was a Front Garden
and a Back Garden, and it was the Back Garden
she liked best and which appeared to her large

30 The One I Knew the Best of All

enough for all one's world. It was all her world
during the years she spent there. The Front
Garden had a little lawn with flower-beds on it
and a gravel walk surrounding it and leading to
the Back Garden. The interesting feature of this
domain was a wide flower-bed which curved
round it and represented to the Small Person a
stately jungle. It was filled with flowering shrubs
and trees which bloomed, and one could walk be-
side them and look through the tangle of their
branches and stems and imagine the things which
might live among them and be concealed in their
shadow. There were rose-bushes and lilac-bushes
and rhododendrons, and there were laburnums
and snowballs. Elephants and tigers might have
lurked there, and there might have been fairies or
gypsies, though I clo not think her mind formu-
lated distinctly anything more than an interesting
suggestion of possibilities.

But the Back Garden was full of beautiful won-
ders. Was it always Spring or Summer there in
that enchanted Garden which, out of a whole
world, has remained throughout a lifetime the
Garden of Eden ? Was the sun always shining ?
Later and more material experience of the Eng-
lish climate leads me to imagine that it was not
always flooded and warmed with sunshine, and
filled with the scent of roses and mignonette and
new-mown hay and apple-blossoms and strawber-

The Back Garden of Eden 31

ries all together, and that when one laid down on
the grass on one's back one could not always see
that high, high world of deep sweet blue with
fleecy islets and mountains of snow drifting slowly
by or seeming to be quite still — that world to
which one seemed somehow to belong even more
than to the earth, and which drew one upward
with such visions of running over the white soft
hills and springing, from little island to little
island, across the depths of blue which seemed a
sea. But it was always so on the days the One I
knew the best of all remembers the garden. This
is no doubt because, on the wet days and the windy
ones, the cold days and the ugly ones, she was
kept in the warm nursery and did not see the
altered scene at all.

In the days in which she played out of doors
there were roses in bloom, and a score of wonder-
ful annuals, and bushes with gooseberries and red
and white and black currants, and raspberries
and strawberries, and there was a mysterious and
endless seeming alley of Sweetbriar, wrhich smelt
delicious when one touched the leaves and which
sometimes had a marvellous development in the
shape of red berries upon it. How is it that the
warm, scented alley of Sweetbriar seems to lead
her to an acquaintance, an intimate and friendly
acquaintance, with the Rimmers's pigs, and some-
how through them to the first Crime of her infancy ?

32 The One I Knew the Best of All

The Rimmers were some country working-
people whose white-washed cottage was near the
Back Garden. Rimmer himself was a market
gardener, and in his professional capacity had
some connection with the Back Garden itself and
also with the gardener. The cottage was very
quaint and rural, and its garden, wherein cab-
bages and currant-bushes and lettuces, etc., grew
luxuriantly, was very long and narrow, and one
of its fascinating features was the pig-sty.

A pig-sty does not seem fascinating to mature
years, but to Six-years-old, looking through an
opening in a garden hedge and making the ac-
quaintance of a little girl pig-owner on the other
side, one who knows all about pigs and their
peculiarities, it becomes an interesting object.

Not having known the pig in his domestic
circles, as it were, and then to be introduced to
him in his own home, surrounded bv Mrs. Pisr and

J O

a family of little Pink Pigs, squealing and hustling
each other, and being rude over their dinner in
the trough, is a situation full of suggestion.

The sty is really like a little house. What is Mr.
Pig thinking of as he lies with his head half-way
out of the door, blinking in the sun, and seeming
to converse with his family in grunts? What do
the Brunts mean ? Do the little Pink Pi^s under-

o o

stand them ? Does Mrs. Pig really reply when she
seems to ? Do they really like potato and apple

The Back Garden of Eden ^

j \j \j

parings, and all sorts of things jumbled together
with buttermilk and poured into the trough?

The little girl whose father owns the pigs is
very gifted. She seems to know everything about
the family in the sty. One may well cherish an
acquaintance with a person of such knowledge
and experience.

One is allowed to talk to this little girl. Her
name is Emma Rimmer. Her father and mother
are decent people, and she is a well-behaved little
girl. There is a little girl whose mother keeps the
toll-gate on the road, and it is not permitted that
one should converse with her. She is said to be
" a rude little girl," and is tabooed.

But with Emma Rimmer it is different. She
wears a print frock and clogs, and speaks in the
Lancashire dialect, but there seems to be no seri-
ous objection to occasional conversation with her.
At some time the Small Person must have been
taken into the narrow garden, because of a remem-
brance of luxuries there revealed. A yard or so
from the door of the cottage there was a small
wooden shed, with a slanting roof protecting a
sort of table or counter, with toothsome delicacies
spread upon it for sale.

They were refreshments of the sort which the
working -classes patronize during their Sunday
wTalks into the country. Most of them are pur-
chasable for one penny, or one halfpenny, in coin
3

34 The One I Kneiv the Best of All

of the realm. Pieces of cardboard in the cottage

window announce :

' Pop. A penny a bottle.
Ginger beer
Sold here.
Also Nettle beer."

On the stall there are " Real Eccles Cakes.
One penny each." " Parkins. A halfpenny."
There are glass bottles with " Raspberry Drops'
in them, and " Bulls Eyes," and " Humbugs '
-beautiful striped sticky things which taste
strongly of peppermint. If one is capitalist
enough to possess a halfpenny, one can spend
half an hour in trying to decide what luxury to
invest it in.

There was in those days in the air a rumor —
for which Emma Rimmer was responsible — a sort
of legend repeated with bated breath and not re-
garded with entire confidence — of a female Monte
Christo of tender years, who once had spent a
whole sixpence at a time. But no one saw her.
She was never traced and could not have be-
longed to the neighborhood. Indeed there was
an impression in the Small Person's mind that
she was somehow connected with someone who
worked in factories — perhaps was a little factory
girl herself. No \vell-regulated little girl, with a

The Back Garden of Eden 35

nurse's eye upon her, would have been permitted
to indulge in such reckless, even vulgar, extrava-
gance.

Through the nearness of these temptations
Crime came. The Serpent entered the Back
Garden of Eden. The Serpent was innocent lit-
tle Emma Rimmer.

There was a day on which the Small Person
was playing with Emma Rimmer. Perhaps the
air was sharp and hunger-creating, perhaps she
had not eaten all her bowl of bread-and-milk at
her Nursery breakfast that morning. Somehow
she was not in the Back Garden, but in the road
outside the big gates which opened into the car-
riage-way. Why she was without her Nurse is
not explained. She seemed to be jumping about
and running in a circle with Emma Rimmer, and
she became suddenly conscious of a gnawing
sense of vacancy under the belt of her pinafore.
" I am so hungry," she said ; " I am so hungry."
Emma looked at her and then continued to jump
up and down.

Something unusual must have been in the situ-
ation, because there seemed to be none of the
usual methods to fall back upon in the way of
going in search of bread-and-butter.

"I wish I had a halfpenny," she continued. " If
I had a halfpenny I would get you to go to your
cottage and get me a halfpenny parkin." A parkin

36 The One I Knew the Best of All

is a spicy thing- made of molasses and oatmeal
and flavored with ginger. It can only be found
in Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Emma stopped jumping and looked sharply re-
flective. Familiarity with commerce had ren-
dered her daring.

" Why does'na tha' go an' get a parkin on
trust? " she said. " My mother 'd trust thee for a
ha'p'ny."

" Ah ! " gasped the Small Person.

The boldness of the suggestion overwhelmed
her. She had never dreamed of the possibility of
such a thing.

" Aye, she would," said Emma. " Tha' could
just get thy parkin an' pay next toime tha' had a
ha'p'ny. A moit o' people does that way. I'll go
an' ax Mother fur thee now."

The scheme seemed so gigantic, so far from re-
spectable, so fraught with peril. Suppose that
one got a parkin " on trust," and never got a half-
penny, and one's family were consequently in-
volved in eternal dishonor and disaster.

" Mamma would be angry," she said ; " she
would not let me do it."

" Tha' needn't say nowt about it," said Emma.

This was not actual duplicity, I am convinced.
Her stolid rusticity retained its red cheeks like
rosy apples, and she hopped about like a cheerful
sparrow.

The Back Garden of Eden

It was doubtless this serene and matter-of-fact
unconsciousness of any serious aspect of the mat-
ter which had its effect upon the Small Person.

&e- #r>,i ' .iv' !

•

There is no knowing how long the discussion
lasted, or in what manner she was finally per-
suaded by prosaic, practical argument that to
make an investment " on trust' was an every-

38 The One I Knew the Best of All

day commercial affair. The end of the matter
was that stress of the moment prevailed and
Emma went for the parkin.

But the way of the infant transgressor is hard.
The sense of proportion is as exaggerated in re-
gard to mental as to physical objects. As lilac
and rhododendron bushes form jungles, and trees
reach the sky, so a nursery law defied assumes the
stature of a crime, and surrounds itself with hor-
ror. I do not think there is a defalcator, an ab-
sconding bank president, a criminal of any de-
gree, who is beset by such a monster of remorse
as beset the Small Person, when her guilt was
so far an accomplished fact that the brown and
sticky cake was in her hand.

•/

The incident is nothing, but its effect, in its il-
lustration of the dimensions facts assume to the
contemplative mind of tender years, has its inter-
est. She could not eat the " parkin." Her soul
revolted against it after the first bite. She could
not return it to Mrs. Rimmer with a semicircular
piece taken out of its roundness, and the marks of
small, sharp teeth on the edge. In a situation
so fraught with agony and so clouded with in-
famy she could confide in no one. I have never
murdered anyone and had the body of my victim
to conceal from the public eye, but I know how
a murderer suffering from this inconvenience
feels. The brown, sticky cake with the semicir-

The Back Garden of Eden 39

cular bite taken out of it, was as awful and as
difficult to manage. To dispose of it involved
creeping about on tiptoe, with beating heart and
reeling brain. It involved looking stealthily for
places where evidences of crime might be con-
cealed. Why the Small Person hit on a specially
candid shelf in a cupboard in an undisguised side-
board in the dining-room, as a good place, it
would be difficult to say. I comfort myself by
saying that this indicated that she was naturally
unfitted for crime and underhanded ways, and
was not the least clever in stealth.

How she separated from her partner in iniquity
I do not remember. My chief memory is of the
awful days and nights which followed. How
many were there? She thought a thousand — it is
probable there were two or three.

She was an infant Eugene Aram, and the body
of her victim was mouldering in the very house
with her. Her anguish, however, did not arise
from a fear of punishment. Her Mamma was not
severe, her Nurses were not allowed to slap her.
It was a mental affair altogether. She felt that
she had disgraced her family. She had brought
ignominy and dishonor upon her dearest rela-
tives. She was very fond of her relatives, and
her conception of their moral and mental altitude
was high. Her Mamma was a lady, and her little
daughter had gone and bought a halfpenny par-

4O The One I Knew the Best of All

kin " on trust." She would have felt it not the
least an undue thing if a thunderbolt had struck
her dead in the Back Garden. It was no longer
the Back Garden of Eden. A degraded criminal
denied it with her presence.

And the Body was mouldering in the side-
board, on the second shelf in the little cupboard.

I think she would have faded away and perished
with the parkin, as witch-stricken victims perish
with the waxen figure which melts — but there
came relief.

She had two brothers older than herself, and so
to be revered, as representing experience and the
powerful mind of masculinity. (Being an English
little girl she knew the vast superiority of the
Male.) The younger of the two was a combative
little fellow with curly hair, a belted-in round-
about, a broad white collar, and two broad white
front teeth. As she was only a girl, he despised
her in a fraternal British way, but as she was his
sister he had a kind of affection for her, which ex-
pressed itself in occasional acts of friendly pat-
ronage. He was perhaps seven or eight years old.

In some moment of severest stress of anguish
she confessed herself to him. It is so long ago
that I cannot describe the manner or the occasion.
I can only remember the magnificence of his con-
duct. He must have been a good-natured little
fellow, and he certainly had a lordly sense of the

The Back Garden of Eden

family dignity, even as represented or misrep-
resented by a girl.

That he berated her roundly it is not unlikely,
but his points of
view concerning
the crime were not
a s disproportion-
ately exalted as her
own. His mascu-
line vigor would
not permit her to
be utterly crushed,
or the family hon-
or lost. He was a
Man and a Capi-
talist, as well as a
Man and a Brother.
He had a penny of
his own, he had al-
so a noble and Na-
poleonic nature. He went to the cottage of Mrs.
Rimmer (to his greater maturity was accorded
the freedom of leaving the garden unaccompanied
by a nurse) and paid for the parkin. So the blot
was erased from the escutcheon, so the criminal,
though still feeling herself stained with crime,
breathed again.

She had already begun to have a sort of literary
imagination, and it must in some way have been

42 The One I Knew tke Best of All

already fed with some stories of heroic and noble
little boys whose conduct was to be emulated and
admired. I argue this from the fact that she
mentally and reverently compared him to a boy
in a book. What book I cannot say, and I am not
sure that she could have said herself, but at that
time he figured in her imagination as a creature too
noble to be anything but a creation of literature-
the kind of boy who would refuse to steal apples,
and invariably gave his plum-cake to beggars or
hungry dogs.

But there was a feature of the melting away
of this episode which was always a mystery to
her. Her Mamma knew all, so did her Grand-
mamma, so did the Nurses, and yet she was not
treated as an outcast. Nobody scolded her, no-
body reviled her, nobody seemed to be afraid to
leave her with the Baby, for fear she might de-
stroy it in some mad outburst of her evil in-
stincts. This seemed inexplicable. If she had
been branded on the brow, and henceforth kept
under the custody of a strong escort of police-
men, she would not have been surprised. And
yet she was allowed to eat her breakfast bowl of
bread-and-milk at the Nursery table with innocent
children, and to play in the Back Garden as if her
presence would not blight the gooseberries, and
the red currants would not shrivel beneath her
evil eye.

The Back Garden of Eden 43

My opinion is that, hearing the story from the
Capitalist in the roundabout, her Mamma and her
Grandmamma were privately immensely amused,
and felt it more discreet to preserve a dignified
silence. But that she was not swept from the
earth as she deserved, did not cause her to regard
her crime as less. She only felt the wonderful-
ness of mercy as embodied in one's Grandmamma
and one's Mamma.

CHAPTER IV.

Literature and tJie Doll.

WHETHER as impression-creating and mind-
moulding influences, Literature or the Doll came
first into her life it would be most difficult to
decide. But remembering the role the Doll
played, and wherein its fascination lay, I see that
its way must have been paved for it in some
rudimentary manner by Literature, though their
clearly remembered existences seem to have be-
gun at one and the same time. Before the advent
of literary influence I remember no Doll, and,
curiously enough, there is, before the advent of
the Doll, a memory of something like stories-
imperfect, unsatisfactory, filling her with vague,
restless craving for greater completeness of form,
but still creating images for her, and setting her
small mind at work.

It is not in the least likely she did not own
dolls before she owned books, but it is certain
that until literature assisted imagination and gave
them character, they seemed only things stuffed
with sawdust and made no special impression.

It is also certain that she cannot have been told

Literature and the Doll 45

stories as a rule. I should say that she did not
hear them even as the exception. I am sure of
this because I so well recollect her desperate
efforts to wring- detail of any sort from her
nurses.

The " Slaughter of the Innocents " seems to me
to have been the first story impression in her life.
A little illustrated scripture history afforded a
picture of Jewish mothers rushing madly down
broad stone stairways clasping babies to their
breasts, of others huddling under the shadow of
high walls clutching their little ones, and of fierce
armed men slashing with swords.

This was the work of Herod the King. And

" In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation
and weeping, and great mourning. Rachel weep-
ing for her children, and would not be comfort-
ed, because they were not."

This was the first story, and it was a tragedy-
only made endurable by that story of the Star in
the East which led the way to the Manger where

J O

the little Child lay sleeping with a light about his
head — the little Child before whom the wise men
bent, worshipping and offering gifts of frankin-
cense and myrrh. She wondered greatly what
frankincense and myrrh were, but the wise men
were beautiful to her, and she could see quite
clearly the high deep dome of blue which vaulted
the still plain where the Shepherds watched their

46 The One I Knew the Best of All
Hocks at niirht, when the angel of the Lord came

o o

to them and glory shone round about and they
were " sore afraid," until the angel said unto
them, " Fear not, for behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy."

This part of the story was strange and majestic
and lovely, and almost consoled her for Herod
the King.

The Nurse who was the unconscious means of
suggesting to her the first romance of her life,
must have been a dull person. Even at this dis-
tance I find myself looking back at her vague,
stupid personality with a sense of impatience.

How could a person learn a couple of verses of
a song suggesting a story, and not only neglect to
learn more, but neglect to inquire about the story

itself?

And oh, the helpless torture of hearing those
odd verses and standing by that phlegmatic per-
son's knee with one's yearning eyes fixed on her
incomprehensible countenance, finding one's self
unable to extort from her by any cross-examina-
tion the details !

Even the stray verses had such wonderful sug-
gestion in them. They opened up such vistas.
At that time the Small Person faithfully believed
the song- to be called " Sweet Alice Benbolt '

Miss Alice Benbolt being, as she supposed, the
name of the young lady described in the lines.

Literature and the Doll 47

She was a very sensitive young" lady, it appeared,
from the description given in the first verse :

" Ah, don't you remember Sweet Alice Benbolt,

Sweet Alice with hair so brown,

How she wept with delight when you gave her a smile,
And trembled with fear at your frown ? '

It did not then occur to the Small Person that
Miss Benbolt must have been trying in the do-
mestic circle ; she was so moved by the tender-
image of a brown-haired girl who was called
" Sweet Alice" and set to plaintive music. Some-
how there was something touching in the way she
was spoken of — as if people had loved her and
were sorry about her for some reason — the boys
who had gone to the school-house " under the
hill," connected with which there seemed to be
such pathetic memories, though the Small Person
could not comprehend why they were pathetic.
But there was a pathos in one verse which broke
her heart when she understood it, which she
scarcely did at first.

" In the little churchyard in the valley Benbolt,

In a corner obscure and alone,
They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray,
And Sweet Alice lies under the stone."

" Why does she lie there?' she asked, "with
both hands on the Nurse's knee. " Why does
Sweet Alice lie under the stone ? "

48 The One I Knew the Best of All

44 Because she died," said the Nurse, without
emotional compunctions, " and was buried there."

The Small Person clung rather helplessly to her
apron.

" Sweet Alice," she said, " Sweet Alice with hair
so brown?'

(Why was the brown hair pathetic as well as the
name ? I don't know. But it was.)

" Why did she die ? " she asked. " What did
she die for ? '

" I don't know," said the Nurse.

" But — but — tell me some more," the Small
Person gasped. " Sing some more."

" I don't know any more."

" But where did the boys go ? '

" I don't know."

" What did the schoolmaster do ?'

" The song doesn't tell."

" Why was he grim ? '

" It doesn't tell that either."

" Did Sweet Alice go to school to him ? '

u I dare say."

" Was he sorry when she died ? '

" It does not say."

" Are there no more verses? '

" I can't remember any more."

Questioning was of no use. She did not know
any more and she did not care. One might im-
plore and try to suggest, but she was not an

Literature and the Doll 49

imaginative character, and so the Small Person

was left to gaze at her with hungry eyes and a
sense of despair before this stolid being, who
DiigJit have known the rest and would not. She
probably made the woman's life a burden to her
by imploring her to sing again and again the stray
verses, and I have no doubt that at each repetition
she invented new questions.

" Sweet Alice Benbolt," she used to say to her-
self. " Sweet Alice with hair so brown." And
the words always called up in her mind a picture
which is as clear to-day as it was then.

It is a queer little picture, but it seemed very
touching at that time. She saw a hillside covered

with soft £reen. It was not a higfh hill and its

O <— '

slope was gentle. Why the " school-house under
the hill" was placed on the top of it, would be
difficult to explain. But there it was, and it
seemed to look down on and watch benignly over
something in a corner at the foot of it. The

something was a slab of the granite so gray ly-
ing among the soft greenness of the grass.

" And Sweet Alice lay under the stone."

She was not a shadow — Sweet Alice. She is
something far more than a shadow even now,
in a mind through which thousands of shadows
have passed. She was a tender thing — and she

50 The One I Knew the Best of All

had brown hair — and somehow people loved her
-and she died.

It was not until Literature in the form of story7,

j j

romance, tragedy, and adventure had quickened
her imagination that the figure of the Doll loomed
up in the character of an absorbing interest, but
once having appeared it never retired from the
scene until advancing years forced the curtain to
fall upon the exciting scenes of which it was al-
ways the heroine.

That was the truth of the matter — it was not a
Doll, but a Heroine.

And some imagination was required to make it
one. The Doll of that day was not the dimpled
star-eyed creature of to-day, who can stand on her
o\vn firm little feet, whose plump legs and arms
can be placed in any position, whose attitudes
may be made to express emotions in accordance
with the Delsarte system, and who has parted
lips and pearly teeth, and indulges in features.
Not at all.

The natural advantages of a doll of that period
confined themselves to size, hair which was sewn
on a little black skull-cap — if it was not plastered
on with mucilage - - and eyes which could be
jerked open if one pulled a wire which stuck
out of her side. The most expensive and magnifi-
cent doll you could have was merely a big wax
one, whose hair could be combed and whose eyes

Literature and the Doll 51

would open and shut. Otherwise they were all
the same. Only the face and neck were of wax,
and features were not studied by the manufact-
urers. All the faces were exactly the same shape,
or rather the same shapelessness. Expression and
outline would have been considered wanton waste
of material. To-day dolls have cheeks and noses
and lips and brows, they look smiling or pensive,
childlike or sophisticated. At that time no doll
was guilty of looking anything at all. In the
middle of her smooth, round face was a blunt
excrescence which was called a nose, beneath it
was a line of red paint which was meant for a
mouth, on each side of it was a tight-looking
black or blue glass eye as totally devoid of ex-
pression and as far removed from any resem-
blance to a real eye as the combined talents of ages
of doll manufacturers could make it. It had no
pupil and no meaning, it stared, it glared, and was
only a little more awful when one pulled the wax
lid over it than it was when it was fixed and open.
Two arches of brown paint above it were its eye-
brows, and all this beauty was surmounted with
the small black cap on the summit of which was
stretched a row of dangling curls of black or
brown. Its body was stuffed with sawdust which
had a tragic tendency to burst forth and run out
through any hole in the white calico which was
its skin. The arms and legs were like sawdust-

52 The One I Kneiv t/ie Best of All

stuffed sausages, its arms were covered with pink
or blue or yellow or green kid, there being no
prejudice caused by the fact that arms were not
usually of any of these shades ; its legs dangled
painfully and presented no haughty contours, and
its toes invariably turned in.

How an imagination, of the most fervid, could
transform this thing into a creature resembling
anything human one cannot explain. But nature
is very good — sometimes — to little children. One
day, in a squalid London street, I drove by a
dirty mite sitting upon a step, cuddling warmly
a little bundle of hay tied round the middle with
a string. It was her baby. It probably was lily
fair and had eyes as blue as heaven, and cooed
and kissed her again --but grown-up people
could not see.

When I recall the adventures through which
the Dolls of the Small Person passed, the trage-
dies of emotion, the scenes of battle, murder, and
sudden death, 1 do not wonder that at times the
sawdust burst forth from their calico cuticle in
streams, and the Nursery floor was deluged with
it. Was it a thing to cause surprise that they
wore out and only lasted from one birthday to
another? Their span of life was short, but they
could not complain that existence had not been
full for them. The Doll who, on November 24th,
begins a checkered career by mounting an un-

Literature and t/ie Doll 53

tamed and untamable, fiercely prancing and
snorting steed, which, while it strikes sparks from
the earth it spurns with its disdainful hoofs, wears
to the outward gaze the aspect of the mere arm
of a Nursery Sofa covered with green baize — the
Doll who begins life by mounting this steed, and
so conquering its spirit that it responds to her
touch and leaps the most appalling hedges and
abysses, and leaves the lightning itself behind in
its career ; and having done this on the 24th, is
executed in black velvet on the 25th as Mary
Queen of Scots, besides being imprisoned in the
Tower of London as someone else, and threatened
with the rack and the stake because she will not
" recant " and become a Roman Catholic — a Doll
with a career like this cannot be dull, though she
may at periods be exhausted. While the two lit-
tle sisters of the Small Person arranged their doll's
house prettily and had tea-parties out of minia-
ture cups and saucers, and visited each other's
corners of the nursery, in her corner the Small
Person entertained herself with wildly thrilling
histories, which she related to herself in an under-
tone, while she acted them with the assistance of
her Doll.

She was all the characters but the heroine — the
Doll was that. She was the hero, the villain, the
banditti, the pirates, the executioner, the weep-
ing maids of honor, the touchingly benevolent

54 The One I Knew the Best of All

old gentleman, the courtiers, the explorers, the
king.

She always spoke in a whisper or an undertone,
unless she was quite alone, because she was shy
of being heard. This was probably an instinct
at first, but it was a feeling intensified early by
finding out that her habit of " talking to her-
self," as others called it, was considered a joke.
The servants used to listen to her behind doors
and giggle when they caught her ; her brothers
regarded her as a ridiculous little object. They
were cricket -playing boys, who possibly won-
dered in private if she was slightly cracked, but
would have soundly thumped and belabored any
other boy who had dared to suggest the same
thing.

The time came when she heard it said that she
was " romantic." It was the most crushing thing
she had ever experienced. She was quite sure
that she Avas not romantic. She could not bear
the ignominy of the suggestion. She did not
know what she was, but she was sure she was not
romantic. So she was very cautious in the mat-
ter of keeping to her own corner of the Nursery
and putting an immediate stop to her perform-
ance the instant she observed a silence, as if any-
one was listening. But her most delightful life
concentrated itself in those dramatized stories
through which she " talked to herself."

Literature and the Doll

At the end of the entrance hall of the house in
which she lived was a tall stand for a candelabra.

It was of worked iron
and its standard was or-
namented with certain
decorative sup-
ports to the
upper part.
What were
the emo-
t i o n s
of the

Small

Person's

M a m m a ,

who was the

gentlest a n d

kindest of her sex,

on coming upon her

offspring one day, on descending the staircase, to

find her apparently furious with insensate rage,

muttering to herself as she brutally lashed, with

56 The One I Knew the Best of AIL

one of her brother's toy whips, a cheerfully hide-
ous black gutta-percha doll who was tied to the
candelabra stand and appeared to be enjoying the
situation.

" My dear, my dear ! ' exclaimed the alarmed
little lady, " what arc you doing ? '

The Small Person gave a little jump and
dropped at her side the stalwart right arm which
had been wielding the whip. She looked as if
she would have turned very red, if it had been
possible for her to become redder than her exer-
tions had made her.

"I- -I was only playing," she faltered, sheep-
ishly.

" Playing ! " echoed her Mamma. " What ivcrc
you playing ? '

The Small Person hung her head and answered,
with downcast countenance, greatly abashed.

" I was — only just — pretending something," she
said.

" It really quite distressed me," her Mamma
said, in discussing the matter afterward with a
friend. " I don't think she is really a cruel child.
I always thought her rather kind-hearted, but she
wras lashing that poor black doll and talking to
herself like a little fury. She looked quite
\vicked. She said she was ' pretending ' some-
thing. You know that is her way of playing.
She does not play as Edith and Edwina do. She

Literature and the Doll 57

k pretends ' her doll is somebody out of a story
and she is somebody else. She is very romantic.
It made me rather nervous the other day when
she dressed a baby-doll in white and put it into a
box and covered it with flowers and buried it in
the front garden. She was so absorbed in it, and
she hasn't dug it up. She goes and strews flow-
ers over the grave. I should like to know what
she was ( pretending ' when she was beating the
black doll."

Not until the Small Person had outgrown all

dolls, and her mother reminded her of this inci-
dent, did that innocent lady know that the black
doll's name was Topsy, but that on this occasion
it had been transformed into poor Uncle Tom,
and that the little fury with flying hair was the
wicked Legree.

She had been reading " Uncle Tom's Cabin."
What an era it was in her existence. The cheer-
ful black doll was procured immediately and
called Topsy ; her " best doll," which fortunately
had brown hair in its wig, was Eva, and was kept
actively employed slowly fading away and dying,
while she talked about the New Jerusalem, with
a hectic flush on her cheeks. She converted
Topsy, and totally changed her gutta-percha nat-
ure, though it was impossible to alter her gutta-
percha grin. She conversed with Uncle Tom
(then the Small Person was Uncle Tom) ; she cut

58 The One I Knew the Best of All

off "her long golden-brown curls" (not literally;
that was only " pretended : ' the wig had not
ringlets enough on it), and presented them to the
weeping slaves. (Then the Small Person was all
the weeping slaves at once.) It is true that her
blunt-nosed wax countenance remained perfectly
unmoved throughout all this emotion, and it must
be confessed that at times the Small Person felt a
lack in her, but an ability to " pretend " ardently
was her consolation and support.

It surely must be true that all children possess
this right of entry into the fairyland, where any-
thing can be " pretended." I feel quite sure they
do, and that, if one could follow them in the " pre-
tendings," one would make many discoveries
about them. One day, in the Cascine in Florence,
a party of little girls passed me. They were led
by a handsome child of eleven or twelve, who,
with her head in the air, was speaking rapidly in
French.

" Moi," she said to the others as she went by,

•

and she made a fine gesture with her hand, " Moi
je suis la Reine ; vous — vous etes ma suite ! '

It set one to thinking. Nature has the caprice
sometimes, we know, to endow a human thing at
birth with gifts and powers which make it through
life a leader — "la reine' or "le roi," of whom
afterward others are always more or less " la
suite." But one wondered if such gifts and

Literature and the Doll 59

powers in themselves had not a less conscious
and imperious air than this young- pretender
wore.

The green-covered sofa in the Nursery was an
adventurous piece of furniture. To the casual
observer it wore a plain old-fashioned, respectable
exterior. It was hard and uninviting and had an
arm at each end under which was fitted a species
of short, stiff green bolster or sausage. But these
arms were capable of things of which the cold
unimaginative world did not dream. I wonder if

the sofa itself dreamed of them and if it found
them an interesting variety of its regular Nursery
life. These arms were capable of transforming
themselves at a moment's notice into the most
superb equine form. They were " coal-black
steeds ' or " snow-white palfreys," or " untamed
mustangs ;" they " curvetted," they " caracoled,"
they pranced, their " proud hoofs spurned the
earth." They were always doing things like these,
while the Doll " sprang lightly to her saddle " or sat
" erect as a dart." They were always untamable,
but the Doll in her character of heroine could
always tame them and remain smiling and fearless
while they " dashed across the boundless plain '
or clawed the heavens with their forefeet. No
equestrian feat ever disturbed the calm hauteur
of the Doll. She issued triumphant from every
deadly peril.

60 The One I Knew the Best of AIL

It was Sir Walter Scott who transformed the
sofa-arms to " coal-black steeds," G. P. R. James
and Harrison Ainsworth who made them " snow-
white palfreys," and Captain Mayne Reid whose
spell changed them to "untamed mustangs' and
the Nursery into a boundless prairie across which
troops of Indian warriors pursued the Doll upon
her steed, in paint and feathers, and with war-
whoops and yells, having as their object in view
the capture of her wig.

What a beautiful, beautiful story the " War
Trail ' was — with its white horse of the prairie
which would not be caught. How one thrilled
and palpitated in the reading of it. It opened the
gateway to the world of the prairie, where the
herds of wild horse swept the plain, where buffa-
loes stampeded, and Indian chieftains, magnifi-
cent and ferocious and always covered with wam-
pum (whatever wampum might be), pursued heroes
and heroines alike.

And the delight of Ainsworth's " Tower of Lon-
don." That beloved book with the queer illus-
trations. The pictures of Og, Gog, and Magog,
and Xit the Dwarf, Mauger the Headsman, the
crafty Renard, the Princess Elizabeth with Cour-
tenay kneeling at her feet, and poor embittered
Queen Mary looking on.

What a place it was for a Small Person to wan-
der through in shuddering imaginings, through

Literature and the Doll 61

the dark, dank subterranean passages, where the
rats scurried, and where poor IT ad Alexia roamed,
persecuted by her jailer. One passed by dun-
geons where noble prisoners pined through years
of dying life, one mounted to towers where queens
had waited to be beheaded, one was led with
chilling blood through the dark Traitors' Gate.
But one reached sometime or other the huge
kitchen and servitors' hall, where there was such
endless riotous merriment, where so much " sack '
and " Canary ' was drunk, where there were
great rounds of roast beef, and " venison pasties,"
and roast capons, and even peacocks, and where
they ate " manchets " of bread and " quaffed " their
flagons of nut-brown ale, and addressed each other
as " Sirrah " and " Varlet " and " Knave " in their
elephantine joking.

Poor little Lady Jane Grey ! Poor handsome,
misguided Guilford Dudley ! Poor anguished,
terrified, deluded Northumberland !

What tragic, historical adventures the Doll
passed through in these days ; how she was
crowned, discrowned, sentenced, and beheaded,
and what horror the Nursery felt of wretched,
unloved, heretic-burning Bloody Mary ! And
through these tragedies the Nursery Sofa almost
invariably accompanied her as palfrey, scaffold,
dungeon, or barge from which she " stepped to
proudly, sadly pass the Traitors' Gate."

62 77ie One I Knew the Best of All

And if the Nursery Sofa, was an endeared and
interesting object, how ungrateful it would be to
ignore the charms of the Green Arm Chair in the
Sitting Room, the Sitting Room Cupboard, and
the Sitting Room Table. It would seem simply
graceless and irreverent to write the names of

these delightful objects, as if they were mere
common nouns, without a title to capital letters.
They were benevolent friends who lent their aid
in the carrying out of all sorts of fascinating epi-
sodes, who could be confided in, as it were, and
trusted never to laugh when things were going
on, however dramatic they might be.

The sitting-room was only a small one, but some-
how it had an air of seclusion. It was not the cus-
tom to play in it, but when nobody was there and
the nursery was specially active it had powerful
attractions. One could go in there with the Doll
and talk to one's self when the door was shut,
with perfect freedom from fear of listeners. And
there was the substantial sober-looking Arm Chair
-as sober and respectable as the Nursery Sofa,
and covered with the same green stuff, and it
could be transformed into a " bark " of any de-
scription from a pinnace to a gondola, a canoe, or
a raft set afloat by the survivors of a sinking ship
to drift for weeks upon " the trackless ocean '
without water or food.

Little incidents of this description were contimi-

Literature and the Doll 63

ally taking- place in the career of the Doll. She
was accustomed to them. Not a hair of her wig
turned at the agreeable prospect of being barely
rescued from a burning ship, of being pursued
all over the Indian Ocean or the Pacific by a " rak-
ish-looking craft," flying the black flag and known
to be manned by a crew of bloodthirsty pirates
whose amusement of making captives walk the
plank was alternated by the scuttling of ships. It
was the head pirate's habit to attire himself almost
wholly in cutlasses and pistols, and to greet the
appearance of any prepossessing female captive
with the blood-curdling announcement, "She
shall be mine ! ' But the Doll did not mind that
in the least, and it only made it thrilling for the
hero who had rescued her from the burning ship.
It was also the opinion of the Small Person that no
properly constituted pirate chief could possibly
omit greeting a female captive in this manner — it
rather took, in fact, the form of a piratical custom.
The sitting-room floor on these occasions repre-
sented mid-ocean — the Pacific, the Indian, or the
Mediterranean Sea, their waters being so infested
with sharks and monsters of the deep (in order
that the hero might plunge in and rescue the Doll,
whose habit it was to fall overboard) that it was a
miracle that it was possible at all to steer the Green
Arm Chair.

But how nobly and with what nautical skill it

64 The One I Knciv the Best of All

was steered by the hero ! The crew was neces-
sarily confined to the Doll and this unconquer-
able beinsj — because the Green Arm Chair was not

big.

But notwithstanding his heroic conduct, the
cold judgment of maturer years has led me to be-
lieve that this young man's mind must either have
been enfeebled by the hardships through which
he had passed, or that the ardor of his passion for
the Doll had caused his intellect to totter on its
throne. I am led to this conviction by my dis-
tinct recollection of the fact that on the occasion
of some of their most perilous voyages, when the
Doll had been rescued at the peril of his noble
life, the sole article which he rescued with her, as
being of practical value upon a raft, was a musical
instrument. An indifferent observer who had seen
this instrument in the hand of the Small Person
might have coarsely supposed it to be a tin whistle
-of an order calculated to make itself specially un-
pleasant--but to the hero of the raft and to the
doll it was known as " a lute." Why, with his
practical knowledge of navigation, the hero should
have felt that a rescued young lady on a raft, with-
out food or water, might be sustained in moments
of collapse from want of nutrition by performances
upon the " lute " only persons of deep feeling and
sentiment could explain. But the lute was there
and the hero played on it, in intervals of being

Literature and the Doll 65

pursued by pirates or perishing from starvation,
with appropriately self-sacrificing sentiments.
For myself I have since thought that possibly the
tendency the Doll developed for falling into the
depths of the ocean arose from an unworthy desire
to distract the attention of her companion from his
musical rhapsodies. He was, of course, obliged
to lay his instrument aside while he leaped over-
board and rescued her from the sharks, and she
may have preferred that he should be thus en-
gaged. Were my nature more hardened than
years have as yet made it I might even say that at
times she perhaps thought that the sharks might
make short work of his lute — or himself — and there
may have been moments when she scarcely cared
which. It must be irritating to be played to on a
lute, when one is perishing slowly from inanition.
But ah ! the voyages in the Green Arm Chair,
the seas it sailed, the shores it touched, the en-
chanted islands it was cast upon ! The Small
Person has never seen them since. They were of
the fair world she used to see as she lay upon her
back on the grass in the Back Garden of Eden,
and looked up into the sky where the white islands
floated in the blue. One could long for a no
more perfect thing than that ; after the long years
of wandering on mere, earth, one might find them
again, somewhere - - somewhere. Who knows

where ?
5

66 The One I Knew the Best of All

How surprised the governess would have been,
how amused the mamma, how derisive in their ri-
bald way the brothers, if they had known that the
Sitting Room Cupboard was a temple in Central
America — that the strange pigmy remnants of the
Aztec royal race were kept there and worshipped
as gods, and that bold explorers, hearing of their
mysterious existence, went in search of them in
face of all danger and difficulty and with craft and
daring discovered and took them away. All
these details were in a penny pamphlet which had
been sold at the hall of exhibition where the two
Aztec dwarfs had been on view, the object of the
scientific explorer having apparently been to make
a good thing of them by exhibiting them at a shil-
ling a head, children half price.

The Small Person had not been taken to see
them ; in fact, it is possible that the exhibition had
not belonged to her time. But at some time,
some member of her family must have been of
their audience, for there was the pamphlet, with
extraordinary woodcuts of the explorers, wood-
cuts of the Aztecs with their dwarfed bodies and
strange receding profiles, and woodcuts of the
temple where they had been worshipped as the
last remnant of a once magnificent, now practi-
cally extinct, royal race.

The woodcuts were very queer, and the Temple
was apparently a ruin, whose massive broken and

Literature and the Doll 67

fallen columns made it all the more a place to
dwell upon in wild imaginative dreams. Restored,
in the Sitting Room Cupboard, it was a majestic
pile. Mystic ceremonials were held there, splen-
did rites were solemnized. The Doll took part in
them, the Small Person officiated. Both of them
explored, both discovered the Aztecs. To clo so
it was necessary to kneel on the floor with one's
head inside the cupboard while the scenes were
enacted, but this in no wise detracted from the
splendor of their effect and the intensity of their
interest. Nothing could.

The Sitting Room Table must have been adorned
with a cover much too large for it, or else in those
days table-covers were intended to be large. This
one hung down so far over the table that when one
sat on the floor underneath it with the Doll, it be-
came a wigwam. The Doll was a squaw and the
Small Person a chief. They smoked the calumet
and ate maize, and told each other stories of the
war-trail and the happy hunting-grounds. They
wore moccasins, and feathers, and wampum, and
brought up papooses, and were very happy. Their
natures were mild. They never scalped anyone,
though the tomahawk was as much a domestic
utensil as the fire-irons might have been if they
had had an Indian flavor. That it was dark under
the enshrouding table-cloth made the wigwam all
the more realistic. A wigwam with bay windows

68 The One I Kneiu the Best of All

and a chandelier would not have been according
to Mayne Reid and Fenimore Cooper. And it
was so shut out from the world there, one could
declaim — in undertones — with such freedom. It
seemed as if surely outside the wall of the table-
cloth there was no world at all — no real world-
it was all under the Sitting Room Table — inside
the wigwam. Since then I have often wondered
what the grown-up people thought, who, coming
into the room, saw the table-cloth drawn down,
and heard a little voice whispering, whispering,
whispering beneath its shadow. Sometimes the
Small Person did not know when they came or
went, she was so deeply absorbed — so far away.

Ah, the world went very well then. It was a
wonderful world — so full of story and adventure
and romance. One did not need trunks and rail-
roads ; one could go to Central America, to Cen-
tral Africa — to Central Anywhere — on the arm of
the Nursery Sofa — on the wings of the Green
Arm Chair — under the cover of the Sitting Room
Table.

There is a story of the English painter Watts
which I always remember as a beautiful and
subtle thing, though it is only a brief anecdote.

He painted a picture of Covent Garden Mar-
ket, which was a marvel of picturesque art and
meaning. One of his many visitors — a lady-
looked at it long and rather doubtfully.

Literature and the Doll 69

" Well, Mr. Watts," she said, " this is all very
beautiful, of course, but / know Covent Garden
Market and I must confess / have never seen it
look like this."

"No?" replied Watts. And then, looking at
her thoughtfully. " Don't you wish you could ! '

It was so pertinent to many points of view.

As one looks back across the thousand years of
one's life, to the time when one saw all things like
this — recognizing how far beyond the power of
maturer years it is to see them so again — one says
with half a smile, and more than half a sigh :

" Ah, does not one wish one could ! '

CHAPTER V.

Islington Square.

IT was one of those rather interesting places
which one finds in all large English towns — places
which have seen better days. They are only in-
teresting on this account. Their early picturesque-
ness has usually been destroyed by the fact
that a railroad has forced its way into their neigh-
borhood, or factories, and their accompanying
cottages for operatives, have sprung up around
them. Both these things had happened to Isling-
ton Square, and only the fact that it was an en-
closed space, shut in by a large and quite impos-
ing iron gateway, aided it to retain its atmosphere
of faded gentility. Such places are often full of
story, though they have no air of romance about
them. The people who live in them have them-
selves usually seen better days. They are often-
est widowed ladies with small incomes, and itn-
widowed gentlemen with large families — people
who, not having been used to cramped quarters,
are glad to find houses of good size at a reduced
rent.

Some of the houses in the Square were quite

Islington Square 7 1

•

stately in proportion, and in their better days
must have been fine enough places. But that
halcyon period was far in the past. Islington
Hall — the most imposing structure — was a " Select
Seminary for young ladies and gentlemen ;" its
companion house stood empty and deserted, as
also did several others of the largest ones, prob-
ably because the widowed ladies and unwidowed
gentlemen coulcl not afford the corps of servants
which would have been necessary to keep them
in order.

In the centre of the Square was a Lamp Post.
1 write it with capital letters because it was not
an ordinary lamp post. It was a very big one,
and had a solid base of stone, which all the
children thought had been put there for a seat.
Four or five little girls could sit on it, and four or
five little girls usually did when the day was fine.

Ah ! the things which were talked over under
the Lamp Post, the secrets that were whispered,
and the wrongs that were discussed ! In the win-
ter, when the gas was lighted at four o'clock,
there could be no more delightfully secluded spot
for friendly conversation than the stone base of
the lamp which cast its yellow light from above.

Was it worldly pride and haughtiness of spirit
which gave rise, in the little girls who lived in
the Square, to a sense of exclusiveness which
caused them to resent an outside little girl's en-

72 The One I Knew the Best of All

•
,

tering the iron gates and sitting " on the Lamp
Post?" They always spoke of it as "sitting on
the Lamp Post."

Islington Square 73

" Who is that sitting on the Lamp Post ? " would
be said disapprovingly. " She is not a Square
girl ; we don't want Street children sitting on our
Lamp Post."

" Street children " were those who lived in the
streets surrounding the Square, and, as they were
in most cases not desirable young persons, they
were not considered eligible for the society of
" Square children " and the Lamp Post.

When the Small Person was introduced to her
first copy of the stories of Hans Christian Ander-
sen, she found a sketch which had a special charm
for her. It was called " The Old Street Lamp,"
and it seemed to be the story of the Lamp
in the middle of the Square. It seemed to ex-
plain a feeling of affection she had always had for
it — a feeling that it was not quite an inanimate
object. She had played about it and sat on the
stone, and had seen it lighted so often that she
loved it, though she had never said so even to
herself. She slept in a front room with her mam-
ma, in the very fourpost bed which had been a
feature in the first remembered episode of her
life. Her house exactly faced the Lamp Post,
and at night its light shone in at her bedroom
window and made a bright patch on the wall.
She used to lie and think about things by the
gleam of it, and somehow she never felt quite
alone. She would have missed it very much if

74 The One I Knew the Best of All

it had not watched over her. At that time street
lamps were not lighted in an instant by a magic
wand. A lamplighter came with a ladder over
his shoulder. He placed the ladder against the
post and ran up it with what seemed astonishing
rapidity, and after lighting the gas ran down
again, shouldered his ladder, and walked off.

How the Small Person adored the novel called
" The Lamplighter ; ' how familiar the friendly
lamp seemed to her, and how she loved old Uncle
True ! Was there ever such a lovable old man-
were there ever sufferings that moved one to such
tears as Gerty's ?

The Street children, as I have said, were not
considered desirable companions for the " Square
children." The Square was at that time a sort of
oasis in the midst of small thoroughfares and back

streets, where factory operatives lived and where
the broadest Lancashire dialect throve. It was
difficult enough to preserve to children any pu-
rity of enunciation in a neighborhood of broad-
est vowels, and as manner of speech is in England
a mark of breeding, association with the Street
children was not encouraged.

But the Small Person adored Street children.
She adored above all things the dialect they
spoke, and the queer things they said. To stray
into a forbidden back street and lure a dirty little
factory child into conversation was a delight. To

Islington Square 75

stand at the iron gateway at twelve o'clock and
see the factory people streaming past> and hear
the young women in tied-back aprons and with
shawls over their heads, shouting friendly or de-
risive chaff to the young men and boys in cordu-
roys, was as good as a play — in fact, a great deal
better than most plays.

She learned to speak the dialect as well as any
of them, though it was a furtively indulged in ac-
complishment. She had two or three clever little
girl friends who were fluent in it, and who used
it with a rich sense of humor. They used to tell
each other stories in it, and carry on animated
conversations without losing a shade of its flavor.

They said, " Wilt tha' and " Wheer art goin',"
and " Sithee lass," and " Eh ! tha young besom,
tha! " with an easy familiarity which they did not
display in the matter of geography. There was a
very dirty little boy whose family lived rent free, as
care-takers in one of the deserted big houses, and
this dirty little boy was a fount of joy. He had a
disreputable old grandfather who was perennially
drunk, and to draw forth from Tommy, in broad-
est Lancashire dialect, a cheerfully realistic de-
scription of " Granfeyther ' in his cups, was an
entertainment not to be despised. Granfeyther's
weakness was regarded by Tommy in the light of
an amiable solecism, and his philosophical good
spirits over the matter presented a point of view

76 The One I Knew the Best of All \

picturesquely novel to the Small Person and her
friends. " Eh ! tha should heer my Granfeyther
sweer when he's drunk," Tommy would remark,
with an air of triumph suggesting a decent family
pride. " Tha shouldst just heer him. Tha never
heerd nothin' loike it — tha didn't ! ' with an evi-
dent sense of the limited opportunities of good
society.

It was the habit of the Small Person to sit upon
the floor before one of the drawing-room windows
each evening, and learn her lessons for the next
day ; and on one of these occasions she saw a creat-
ure who somehow puzzled and interested her in-
tensely, though she could not have explained why.

It was part of an unwritten law that people
who did not occupy houses in the Square should
not come into it, unless they had business. This
possibly arose from the fact that it was not a
thoroughfare, and there was really no reason
why outsiders should pass the iron gates.

When they did they were always regarded
with curiosity until one knew what they wanted.
This limitation, in fact, gave the gravelled en-
closure surrounded by factories and small streets
something the social atmosphere of a tiny, rather
gossipy, country town. Each household knew
the other, and had a knowledge of its affairs only
limited by the characteristics and curiosities of
the members.

Islington Square 77

So, on this particular evening, when the Small
Person, hearing voices, looked up from her geog-
raphy to see a group of stranger children gath-
ered about the Lamp Post, she put her elbows on
the window-sill and her cheeks on her hands, and
looked out at them with interest.

They were evidently not only " Street children,"
but they were " Back Street children," a race
more exciting to regard as objects, because their
customs and language were, as it were, exotic.
" Back Street children " ahvays spoke the dialect,
and the adult members of their families almost
invariably worked in the factories — often, indeed,
the children worked there themselves. In that
locality the atmosphere of fas foyer was frequent-
ly of a lively nature, generally the heads of the
families evinced a marked partiality for beer, and
spent their leisure moments in consuming "pots"
of it at " th' Public." This not uncommonly re-
sulted in argument of a spirited nature, entered
into, quite probably, in the street, carried on inco-
herently, but with vigor, on the door-steps, and
settled — with the fire-irons or portable domestic
articles — in the home circle. Frequently these
differences of opinion were terminated with the
assistance of one or more policemen ; and while
the discussions were being carried on the street
was always filled with a mob of delighted and
eagerly sympathetic neighbors. Feeling always

78 The One I Knew the Best of All

ran high among the ladies, who usually stood and
regarded the scene with arms akimbo.

" A noice chap he is ! " it would be said some-
times. " He broke th' beer jug ower 'er 'ed two
weeks sin', an' now he's give her a graidely black
eye. He out to be put i' th' Lockups."

Or—

" No wonder he gi'es her a hidin'. Her spends
all his wage at th' Black Pig i' th' beer. She was
drunk o' Thursday, an' drunk o' Friday, an' now
she's gettin' ready fur Saturday neet."

" A row in Islington Court ! " or " A row in
Back Sydney Street. Man beating his wife with
a shovel ! ' was a cry which thrilled the bolder
juvenile spirits of the Square with awesome de-
light. There were even fair little persons who
hovered shudderingly about the big gates, or even
passed them, in the shocked hope of seeing a
policeman march by with somebody in custody.

And the strangers gathered about the Lamp
Post were of this world.

They were half a dozen girls or more. Most of
them factory girls in print frocks, covered by the
big coarse linen apron, which was tied all the way
down the back to confine their skirts, and keep
them from being caught by the machinery. They
had no bonnets on, and they wore clogs on their
feet. They were all the ordinary type of small
factory girl — all but one. Why did the Small

Islington Square 79

Person find her eyes fixed upon that one, and fol-
lowing her movements ? She was bigger than
the others, and seemed more mature, though a
child could not have explained why. She was
dressed exactly as they were — print frock, tied-
back apron, clogs, and bare head, and she held
a coarse blue worsted stocking, which she was
knitting as she talked. It did not occur to the
Small Person that she was beautiful. At that age
beauty meant to her something with pink cheeks
and sparkling blue or black eyes, and sweetly
curled hair, and a charming frock. Not a strange-
looking, colorless factory girl, knitting a worsted
stocking and wearing wooden clogs. Certainly not.

And yet at that girl she stared, quite forgetting
her geography.

The other girls were the ordinary rough lot,
talking loudly, bouncing about and pushing each
other. But this one was not playing at all. She
stood or moved about a little, with a rather meas-
ured movement, knitting all the time her blue
worsted stocking. She was about sixteen, but
of rather massive and somehow majestic mould.
The Small Person would have said she was " big
and slow," if she had been trying to describe her.
She had a clear, colorless face, deep, large gray
eyes, slender, but strong, straight black brows,
and a rather square chin with a cleft in it. Her
hair was dark and had a slight large wave, it

8o The One I Knew the Best of All

was thick and drawn into a heavy knot on the
nape of her neck, which was fine and full like a
pillar, and held her head in a peculiar stately way.

The Small Person, as she watched her, came to
the decision that there was " something the mat-
ter with her."

" What is it?" she said, mentally, with a puzzled
and impressed feeling. " She's not a bit like the
others. She does not look like a Back Street girl
:it all, though she has got clogs on. Somehow
she's different."

That was it. She was different. That was
why one could not return to one's geography
while one could watch her.

Her companions seemed to appeal to her as if
she were a sort of power and influence. She
seemed to control them when they made too much
noise, though she went on knitting her stocking.
The windows were closed, and it was not possible
to hear what was said, but occasional loudly spoken
dialect words or phrases reached the Small Person.
The group did not stay long, and when it went the
one who was " different " led it, and the looker-on
watched her out of sight, and pondered a mo-
ment or so with her nose flattened against the
glass, before she went back to her geography.

One evening the next week, at about the same
time, the same group appeared again. The Small
Person was again on the floor with her lessons on

Islington Square 81

her knee, the factory girls were still laughing and
boisterous, and the one who was different was
again knitting.

The Small Person shuffled all her books off her
knee and let them drop in a heap on the carpet.
She put her elbows on the window-sill again, and
gave herself up to absorbed contemplation.

That the other girls shouted and giggled was
not interesting, but it was interesting to see how,
in the midst of the giggles and shouts, the big one
seemed a stately, self-contained creature who be-
longed to another world. Somehow she seemed
strangely to suggest a story which one could not
read, and of which one could not guess at the plot.

When she grew older and knew more of people
and lives and characters, the Small Person guessed
that she was a story — this strong, pale creature
with the stately head and square-cleft chin. She
was that saddest story of all, which is beauty and
fineness and power — a splendid human thing born
into a world to which she does not belong by any
kinship, and in which she must stand alone and
struggle in silence and suffer. This was what was
the matter with her, this was why a ten-year-old
child, bearing in her own breast a thermometer
of the emotions, dropped her lesson-books to look
at her, and gazed restless and dissatisfied because
she could not explain to herself why this one was

" different."
6

82 The One I Knew the Best of All

This evening the group did not leave the place
as they had done before.

Some girl, turning round toward the entrance,
caught sight of an approaching figure, and has-
tily, and evidently in some consternation, elbowed
a companion. Then they all looked.

A man was coming toward them — an ill-looking
brute in corduroys, with his hands in his pockets
and a moleskin cap pulled over his brows. He
slouched forward as if he were in a bad temper.

" Here's thy feyther ! ' cried one of the girls.
And she said it to the one who was knitting. She
looked at the advancing man and went on knitting
as if nothing was occurring. The Small Person
would have given all her lesson-books — particu-
larly the arithmetic — to know what he had come
for. She knew the kind of man. He usually
drank a great deal of beer and danced on his wife
in his clogs when depressed or irritated. Some-
times he " punsed ' her to death if he had been
greatly annoyed, and females were rather afraid
of him.

But the girl with the deep eyes and straight
black brows evidently was not. She was also evi-
dently used to him. lie went up to her and
addressed her with paternal blasphemy. He
seemed to be ordering1 her to go home. He

o o

growled and bullied her, and threatened her with
his fist.

Islington Square

The Small Person had a horrible fear that he
would knock her down and kick her, as was the
custom of his class. She felt she could not bear
it, and had a wild idea of dashing out somewhere
for a policeman.

But the girl was different. She looked him
straight in the brutal face and went on knitting.
Then she turned and walked slowly out of the
Square. He walked behind her, threatening her
at intervals with his fist and his lifted clog.

84 The One I Knew the Best of All

" Dom tha brazent impidence ! " the Small Per-
son heard him say once.

But the girl walked calmly before him without
a word or a hurried movement. She went on
knitting the stocking until she turned the corner
and disappeared for the last time from the Small
Person's sympathetic gaze. She also disappeared
from her life, for the little girl never saw her
again.

But she thought of her often and pondered her
over, and felt her a power and a mystery. Not
until she had given some contemplative thought
to various antique marbles, and had wondered
" what was the matter ' with the Venus of
Milo, did it dawn upon her mind that in this girl
in the clogs and apron she had seen and been
overpowered by Beauty such' as goddesses were
worshipped for, and strength such as should be-
long to one who ruled. She always wanted to
know what happened afterward, but there was
no end to the story that she ever saw. So it Avas
that some years later she Avrote a beginning, a
middle, and an end herself. She made the factory
operative a Pit Girl, and she called her Joan
Lowrie.

There was such food for the imagination in
thus living surrounded by the lives of streets full
of people who belonged to another world than
one's own — a world whose customs, manners, and

Islington Square 85

language were wholly foreign in one sense-
where even children got up before daylight and
went to their work in the big, whirring, oil-smell-
ing factories — where there was a possibility of be-
ing caught by the machinery and carried after-
ward to the Infirmary, followed by a staring,
pitying crowd — a broken, bleeding heap of human
suffering lying decently covered on a stretcher.
Such accidents were such horrors that to a child
mind they seemed always impending, though
their occurrence was not frequent. But the mere
possibility of them made one regard these peo-
ple— who lived among the ghastly wheels — with
awe.

On the same floor with the Nursery was a room
where the governess slept, presiding over an ex-
tra bed which contained two little girls. There
was a period when for some reason the Small
Person was one of them. The window of this
room, which was at the back, looked down upon
the back of the row of cottages in which opera-
tives lived. When one glanced downward it was
easy to see into their tiny kitchens and watch
them prepare their breakfasts, and eat them too,
if one were curious.

Imagine, then, the interest of waking very
early one dark winter's morning and seeing a
light reflected on the ceiling of the Nursery bed-
room from somewhere far below.

86 The One I Knew the Best of All

The Small Person did this once, and after
watching a little, discovered that not only the
light and the window itself were reflected, but
two figures which seemed to pass before it or
stand near it.

It was too exciting to watch alone, so she spoke
to her sister, who slept at her side.

" Edith ! " she whispered, cautiously, for fear of
disturbing the governess, " Edith, do wake up.
I want to show you something." The prospect
of being shown something in what appeared to
be the middle of the night, was a thing to break
any slumbers.

Edith turned and rubbed her eyes.

"What is it?" she asked, sleepily.

" It's a man and a woman," whispered the Small
Person, half under the bed-clothes, " Back Street
people in their kitchen. You can see them on our
ceiling. This ceiling; just look."

Edith looked. Back Street people always
awakened curiosity.

" So we can," she said, with a carefully
smothered giggle. " There the woman is now ! '

" She's got something in her hand," said the
Small Person. " It looks like a loaf."

" It's a piece of something!' whispered Edith.

" It must be a loaf," said the Small Person.
" They're factory people, and the man's wife must
be getting his breakfast before he goes to

Islington Sqitare 87

work. I wonder what poor people have for
breakfast?"

" There's the man ! " exclaimed Edith, with so
much animation that the governess turned in her
sleep.

" Hush," warned the Small Person ; " she'll
wake up and scold us for making a noise."

" The man is washing his face on the dresser,"
said Edith, in more discreet tones. " We can see
what they do when they are near the window. I
can see him rubbing and wiggling his head."

" So can I," said the Small Person. " Isn't it
fun ? 1 hope the roller-towel is near the window."

The little whispers, cautious as they were, pen-
etrated the drowsy ears of the governess. She
half awakened.

x " Children," she said, " what are you whisper-
ing about ? Don't be so naughty. Go to sleep ! '
All very well for a sleepy governess, but for two
little persons awake at four o'clock, and with
front seats at a Back Street panorama on their
own bedroom ceiling, ridiculously out of the
question.

Ah, the charm of it ! The sense of mystery and
unusualness. It seemed the middle of the night.
In all the bedrooms through the house every one
was asleep — the servants, the brothers, mamma,
the very Doll had had her wire pulled and her
wax eyelids drawn clown. Being awake had the

88 The One I Knew the Best of All

charms of nursery guilt in it. It was naughty to
be awake, and it was breaking rules to talk. But
how could one go to sleep with the rest when the
Back Street woman was awake and getting }ier

C5 O

husband's breakfast. One's own ceiling reflected
it and seemed to include one in the family circle.

" If they hada fight," whispered Edith, " we
could see it."

There was no end of speculation to be indulged
in. What each figure was really doing when it
was near enough to the window to be reflected,
what it did when it moved away out of the range
of reflection, and what it was possible they said
to each other, were all things to be excitedly
guessed at, and to endanger the repose of the
governess.

" Edith, you are a naughty girl," she said.
" Frances, I shall speak to your mamma. Edith
would not be whispering if you were not with her.
Go to sleep this instant ! ' As if going to sleep
was a thing done by touching an electric button.

How they longed to creep out of bed, and peep
through the window down into the Back Street
people's kitchen itself. But that was out o! the
question. Neither of them would have dared
such an insubordination — the first morning, at
least.

But there were other such morningrs. It be-

came a habit to waken at that delightful and un-

Islington Square 89

canny hour, just for the pleasure of lying awake
and watching the Woman and the Man. That
was what they called them. They never knew
what their names were, or anything about them,
except what was reflected during that early break-
fast hour upon the ceiling.

But the Small Person was privately attached to
them, and continually tried to imagine what they
said. She had a fancy that they were a decent
couple, who were rather fond of each other, and
it was a great comfort to her that they never had
a fight.

CHAPTER VI.

A Confidence Betrayed

Is the age of seven years an age of special de-
velopment, or an age which attracts incidents in-
teresting, and having an effect on life, and the
formation of character? As I look back I remem-
ber so many things which seemed to happen to
the Small Person when she was seven years old.
She was seven, or thereabouts, when she discov-
ered the Secretaire ; seven when she began to
learn the Lancashire dialect, and study Back
Street people ; seven when she first saw Death,
with solemn, asking eyes, and awe in her soul ;
seven when she wrote her first inarticulate story,
which was a poem ; and seven when she was first
brought face to face with the enormity of a be-
trayed confidence.

Thank God, she did not quite realize what had
happened to her, and that her innocence gave
every reason for hope disappointed, but the true
one, that she had been trifled with and deceived ;
and thank Heaven, also, that the point involved
was not one cruel enough to leave a deep wound.
In fact, though it was quite a serious matter with

A Confidence Betrayed 91

her, she was more mystified and disappointed
than hurt, and for some time did not realize that
she had been the subject of one of maturity's
jokes.

She had a passion for babies. She seldom pre-
tended that the Doll was a baby, but a baby — a
new baby — was an object of rapturous delight to
her. She liked them very new indeed — quite red,
and with little lace caps on, and disproportionately
long clothes. She never found them so delight-
ful as when they wore long clothes. When their
frocks were made short, and one could see their
little red or white shoes kicking, the bloom seemed
to have gone off — they were no longer real babies.
But when the nurse seemed to be obliged to move
them carefully lest they should fall into minute
fragments, when their mouth always opened when
one kissed them, and when they were fragrant of
warm flannel, warm milk, and violet powder, they
were the loves of her yearning little soul.

There were one or two ladies in the square who
were given to new babies, and when one of their
number honored the neighborhood, the Small
Person was always one of the first to hear of it.

"Did you know," it would be said by some
little individual, "that Mrs. Roberts has got a
new baby ? '

Then joy would reign unconfined in the Small
Person's breast. The Doll would be given a day's

92 The One I Knew the Best of All

holiday. Her sawdust interior somehow seemed
such an evident thing. She would be left in her
chair to stare, Avhile her proprietor hovered about
the Roberts house, and walked with friends past
it, looking up at the windows, and discussing,
with bated breath, as to whether the new baby
was a girl or a boy. I think she had a predilec-
tion for girls, feeling somehow that they tended
to long clothes for the greater length of time.

Then some day, having had her hair neatly
curled, and a clean tucker put in her frock, she
would repair to the Roberts establishment, stand
on her tiptoes, cautiously ring the bell, and await
with beating heart the arrival of the housemaid,
to whom she would say, with the utmost polite-
ness of which she was capable :

" If you please, Mamma's compliments, and
how is Mrs. Roberts — And if she is as well as can
be expected, do you think I might see the new
baby ? "

And then, if fortune favored her, which it usu-
ally did, she would be led up the staircase and
into a shaded room, which seemed pervaded by a
solemn but beautiful stillness which made her feel
as if she wanted to be a good little girl always.
And Mrs. Roberts, who perhaps was not really a
specially handsome person at all, but who looked
somehow rather angelic, would hold out her hand
and say gently :

A Confidence Betrayed 93

"How do you do, my dear? Have you come
to see the new baby ? '

And she would answer in a voice full of respect-
ful emotion :

" Yes, if you please, Mrs. Roberts. Mamma
said I might ask you if I could see it — if you are
as well as can be expected — and I may only stay a
few minutes for fear I should bother you."

" Give my regards to your mamma, love, and
say I am getting on very nicely, and the baby is
a little boy. Nurse will let you look at him."

Oh, to stand beside that lovely bundle and look
down at it reverently, as it lay upon the nurse's
knee ! Reverence and adoration mingled with
awe were the pervading emotions in her small
mind. Reverence for Mrs. Roberts and awe of a
stately mystery in the shaded room, which made
it feel rather like a church, reverence for the
nurse who knew all about new babies, reverence
for the new baby, whose newness made him seem
such a potentate, and adoration — pure, deep adora-
tion of him as a Baby.

As years before she had known thoughts which
even her mind could not have known words to
frame, so in these days I well remember that she
felt emotions her child-thoughts could give no
shape to, and which were still feelings which
deeply moved her. She was only a child, who
had been kept a child by those who loved her,

94 The One I Knew the Best of All

who had been treated always as a child, and
who was not in any sense old beyond her brief
years. And yet my memory brings clearly to me
that by the atmosphere of these shaded rooms she
was moved and awed as she was later by the at-
mosphere of other rooms shaded by blinds drawn
down — and by the mystery of another stillness-
a more awful stillness — a colder one, in which peo-
ple always stood weeping as they looked down
at Something which \vas not a life beginning, but
a life's end.

She was too much a little girl to know then that
before the shaded stillness of both chambers the
human nature of her stood hushed and reverent,
confronting Mystery, and the Unanswered Ques-
tion before which ages have stood hushed just
as she did, just as she did though she was only
seven years old. She knew no less than all the
world.

If the nurse was a kind one she was allowed to
look at the baby's feet, and perhaps to kiss them.
Such tiny feet, so pink and tender, and so given
to curling up and squirming !

" Aren't they weenty," she would say, clasping
her hands, " and isn't he beautiful ! Oh, / wish he
was mine ! '

The unbiassed opinion of maturer years leads
me to a tardy conviction that the new babies were
not beautiful, that they were painfully creased and

A Confidence Betrayed 95

grievously red, and had frequently a weird air of
eld combined with annoyance ; that they had no
hair and no noses, and no individuality except to
the Mrs. Roberts of the occasion, who saw in them
the gifts and graces of the gods. (This being the
lovely boon of Nature, whom all women of earth
may kneel and bless that she, in some strange,
gentle moment, has given them this thing.)

But it was the serious belief of the Small Per-
son that, a new baby was always Beautiful, and
she could not possibly have understood the creat-
ure who insinuated, even with the most cautious
and diplomatic mildness, that it was not. No,
that would have been striking at the foundations
of the universe.

And there were Nurses who let her hold the
new baby. She was so careful and so full of ten-
der respect that I think anyone might have trusted
her — even with twins. When she sat on a low
chair and held the white draperied, faintly mov-
ing bundle which was a new-born human thing,
she was an unformed, yearning Mother-creature,
her little breast as warm with brooding instincts
as a small bird-mother covering her first nest.

She did not know this — she was too young — but
it was true.

She was walking slowly round the Square one
lovely summer evening, just after tea (Nursery
breakfasts were at eight, dinners at one, tea at

96 The One I Knew the Best of All

six), and she had as her companion the little girl
who was known as her " Best Friend." One had
a best Doll, a best frock, and a best friend. Her
best friend was a very sensitive, shy little girl
with lovely brown velvet eyes. Her name was
Annie, and their souls were one.

As they walked they saw at length a respect-
able elderly person dressed in black, and carrying
something in her arms. It was something white
and with long drapery depending from it. She
was walking slowly up and down as if taking the
air.

" There is a lady with a baby," exclaimed the
Small Person. " And it looks like a new one."

4i It is a new one," said Annie. " She isn't a
Square lady, I wonder who she is."

It was not easy to tell. She was no one they
knew, and yet there she was walking quietly up
and down, giving a promenade to a new baby.

There was no doubt about the matter, she must
be approached. They eyed her wistfully askance,
and then looked at each other with the same
thought in their eyes.

" Would she think we were rude if we spoke to
her?' suggested the Small Person, almost in a
whisper.

" Oh, we don't know her," said the little Best
Friend. " She might think it very rude."

" Do you think she would ? ' said the Small

A Confidence Betrayed 97

Person. " She looks kind," examining her with
anxiety.

" Let us walk past her," said the Best Friend.
So they walked past her slowly, respectfully re-
garding the new baby. The elderly lady who
carried it did not look vicious — in fact, she looked
amiable, and after they had walked past her twice
she began to smile at them. This was so encour-
aging that they slackened their pace and the Best
Friend gave the companion of her soul a little
" nudge " with her elbow.

" Let's ask her," she said. " You do it."

" No, you."

"I daren't."

" I daren't, either."

" Oh, do. It's a perfectly new one."

" Oh, you do it. See, how nice she looks."

They were quite near her, and just at that junc-
ture she smiled again so encouragingly that the
Small Person stopped before her.

"If you please," she said, "isn't that a new
baby ? "

She felt herself quite red in the face at her
temerity, and there was no doubt an honest im-
ploring in her eyes, for the lady smiled again.

" Yes," she answered. " Do you want to look
at it?"

" Oh, yes, please," they both chimed at once.
" We do so love them."
7

98 The One I Knew the Best of All

The baby's face was covered with a white lace
veil. The lady bent toward them, and lifting it,
revealed the charms beneath.

" There," she said.

And they gasped with joy and cried together:

IliM .!:-/jinf

/(/. -.

'*4#

liiMfm

: W \ '"- '' ''• ^ ' ' / i'f' ' ' ' V'T - Ifev

-/i ^^ ' ' -,:—

/ / / .:

" Oh, isn't it a beautiful one ! ' though it was
exactly like all the others, having neither hair,
features, nor complexion.

" Is it a very new one ? ' they asked. " How
new?' And their hearts were rejoiced with the
information that it was as new as could possibly

A Confidence Betrayed 99

be compatible with its being allowed to breathe
the air of Heaven.

In reflecting upon the conduct of this elderly
person — who was probably a sort of superior
monthly nurse — I have always felt obliged to
class her with the jocular Park policeman who,
in the buoyancy of his spirits, caused the blood of
the Small Person to congeal in her infancy by the
sprightly information that she would be taken to
prison if she fell on the grass through the back of
the seat.

This lady also regarded the innocence of tender
years as an amusing thing. Though how — with
the adoring velvet eyes of the Best Friend fixed
trustingly on her, and with the round face of the
Small Person burning with excited delight as she
talked — it was quite possible for her to play her
comedy with entire composure, I do not find it
easy to explain.

" Are you so very fond of babies ? " she inquired.

" We love them better than anything in the
world."

" Better than dolls?"

" Oh, thousands better ! ' exclaimed the Small
Person.

" But dolls don't cry," said the stranger.

" If I had a baby," the Small Person protested,
" it wouldn't cry, because I should take such care
of it."

ioo The One I Knew the Best of All

" Would you like a baby of your own ? '

1 feel sure the round face must have become
scarlet.

" I would give worlds and worlds for one ! '
with a lavishness quite unbiassed by the limits of
possession.

The stranger was allowing the friends to walk
slowly by her, one on either side. In this way
there seemed to be established some relationship
with the baby.

" Would you like me to give you this one ? '
she asked, quite seriously.

" Give it to me ? " breathless. " Oh, you conldnt"

" I think I could, if you would be sure to take
care of it."

" Oh, oh ! ' with rapturous incredulity. " But
its mamma wouldn't let you ! '

" Yes, I think she would," said the lady, Avith
reflective composure. " You see, she has enough
of them!"

The Small Person gasped ! Enough of new ba-
bies? There was a riotous splendor in such a
suggestion which seemed incredible. She could
not help being guilty of the rudeness of regarding
the strange lady, in private, with doubt. She was
capable of believing almost anything else - - but
not that.

" Ah ! ' she sighed, " you — you're making fun
of me."

A Confidence Betrayed 101

" No," replied this unprincipled elderly person,
" I am not at all. They are very tiresome when
there are a great many of them." She spoke as
if they were fleas. " What would you do with
this one if I gave it to you ? '

At this thrilling suggestion the Small Person
quite lost her head.

" I would wash it every morning," she said, her
words tumbling over each other in her desire to
prove her fitness for the boon. " I would wash it
in warm water in a little bath and with a big soft
sponge and Windsor soap — and I would puff it
all over with powder — and dress it and undress
it — and put it to sleep and walk it about the room
— and trot it on my knees — and give it milk."

" It takes a great deal of milk," said the wicked
elderly person, who was revelling in an orgy of
jocular crime.

" I would ask Mamma to let me take it from
the milkman. I'm sure she would, I would give
it as much as it wanted, and it would sleep with
me, and I would" buy it a rattle, and-

" I see you know how to take care of it," said
the respectable criminal. " You shall have it."

" But how can its Mamma spare it ? " asked the
small victim, fearfully. " Are you sure she could
spare it ?"

" Oh, yes, she can spare it. Of course I must
take it back to her to-night and tell her you want

IO2 The One I Knew the Best of All

it, and I have promised it to you ; but to-morrow
evening you can have it."

Since the dawning of the Children's Century
young things have become much better able to
defend themselves, in the sense of being less
easily imposed on. I believe that only an Eng-
lish child, and a child brought up in the English
nursery of that period, could have been sufficient-
ly unsophisticated to believe this Machiavellian
Monthly Nurse. In that day one's private rev-
erence for and confidence in the grown-up per-
son were things which dominated existence. A
grown-up person represented such knowledge
and dignity and power. People who could crush
you to the earth by telling you that you were
"a rude little girl," or "an impertinent child,"
and who could send you to bed, or give you ex-
tra lessons, or deprive you of your pudding at
dinner, wore an air of omnipotence. To suggest
that a grown-up person — " a grown-up lady ' or
gentleman — could " tell a story," would have been
sheer iconoclasm. And to doubt the veracity of
a respectable elderly person entrusted with a new
baby would have been worse than sacrilegious.
The two friends did not leave her side until she
left the Square to take the baby home, and when
she went, all details had been arranged between
them, and Heaven itself seemed to have opened.

The next evening, at precisely a quarter-past

A Confidence Betrayed 103

seven, the two were to go to the corner of a cer-
tain street, and there they would find the elderly
person with the new baby and a bundle of its
clothes, which were to be handed over with cere-
mony to the new proprietor.

It was to the Small Person the baby was to be
given, though in the glow of generous joy and
affection it was an understood thing between
them that the Best Friend was to be a partner
in the blissful enterprise.

How did they live through the next day ? How
did they learn their lessons ? How could they
pin themselves down to geography and grammar
and the multiplication table? The Small Per-
son's brain reeled, and new babies swam before
her eyes. She felt as if the wooden form she sat
on were a species of throne.

Momentarily she had been brought down to
earth by the fact that, when she had gone to her
Mamma, glowing and exalted from the interview
with the elderly person, she had found herself
confronting doubt as to the seriousness of that
lady's intentions.

" My dear child," said her Mamma, smiling at
her radiant little countenance, " she did not mean
it! she was only joking!'

"Oh, no!' the Small Person insisted. "She
was quite in earnest, Mamma ! She really was.
She did not laugh the least bit. And she was such

IO4 The One I Knew the Best of All

a nice lady — °nd the baby was such a beautiful little
new one ! I asked her if she was laughing at me,
and she said, ' No,' she was not. And I asked her
if the baby's Mamma could spare it, and she said
she thought she could, because she had enough of
them. She was such a kind lady."

Somehow she felt that her Mamma and the
governess were not convinced, but she was too
much excited and there was too much exaltation
in her mood to allow of her being really discour-
aged, at least until after the fateful hour of ap-
pointment. Before that hour arrived she and her
friend were at the corner of the street which had
been named.

"It's rather a common street, isn't it?" the two
said to each other. " It was funny that she
should tell us to come to a back street. That
baby could not live here, of course, and neither
could she. I wonder why she didn't bring it back
into the Square ? '

It was decidedly a back street — being a sort of
continuation of the one whose row of cottages the
Small Person could see from the Nursery win-
dow. It was out of the question that the baby
could belong to such a neighborhood. The houses
were factory people's cottages- -the kind of
houses where domestic differences were settled
with the fire-irons.

The two children walked up and down, talking

A Confidence Betrayed 105

in excited under-tones. Perhaps she had men-
tioned this street because it was near the Square ;
perhaps she lived on the Crescent, which was not
far off ; perhaps she was afraid it would be trou-
blesome to carry the baby and the bundle at the
same time, and this corner was nearer than the
Square itself.

They walked up and down in earnest faith.
Nothing would have induced them to lose sight
of the corner for a second. They confined them-
selves and their promenade to a distance of about
ten yards. They went backward and forward like
squirrels in a cage.

Every ten minutes they consulted together as
to who could pluck up the courage to ask some
passer-by the time. The passers-by were all back
street people. Sometimes they did not know the
time, but at last the children found out that the
quarter-past seven was passed.

" Perhaps the baby was -asleep," said one of
them. " And she had to wait until it wrakened
up before she could put on its bonnet and
cloak."

So they walked up and down again.

" Mamma said she wasn't in earnest," said the
Small Person ; " but she was, wasn't she, Annie? '

" Oh ! yes," said Annie. " She didn't laugh the
least bit when she talked."

" The house at the corner is a little nicer than

io6 The One I Knew the Best of All

the others," the Small Person suggested. " Per-
haps it is very nice inside. Do you think she
might live there ? If she did we could knock at
the door and tell her we are here."

But the house was really not possible. She
must live somewhere else — with that baby.

It seemed as if they had walked for hours, and
talked for months, and reasoned for years, when
they were startled by the booming, regular sound
of a church clock.

" That's St. Philip's bell," exclaimed the Small
Person. " What is it striking ? '

They stood still and counted.

" One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight."

The two friends looked at each other blankly.

" Do you think," they exclaimed simultaneous-
ly, " she isn't coming?'

" But — but she said she would," said the Small
Person, with desperate hopefulness. " If she
didn't come it would be a story ! '

" Yes," said the Best Friend, " she would have
told a story ! '

This seemed an infamy impossible and disre-
spectful to contemplate. It was so impossible that
they braced themselves and began to walk up and
down again. Perhaps they had made some mis-
take- -there had been some misunderstanding
about the time — the corner — the street — anything
but the honorable intentions of the elderly person.

A Confidence Betrayed 107

They tried to comfort each other — to be sus-
tained. They talked, they walked, they watched
-until St. Philip's clock boomed half-past eight.
Their bedtime was really eight o'clock. They
had stayed out half an hour beyond it. They
dare stay no longer. They stopped their \valk
on the fated corner itself and looked into each
other's eyes.

" She Jiasrit come ! ' they said, unconscious of
the obviousness of the remark.

" She said she would," repeated the Small Per-
son.

" It must be the wrong corner," said the Best
Friend.

" It must be," replied the Small Person, deso-
lately. " Or the baby's mamma couldn't spare
it. It was such a beautiful baby — perhaps she
could not ! '

" And the lady did not like to come and tell us,"
said the Best Friend. " Perhaps we shall see her
in the Square again some time."

" Perhaps we shall," said the Small Person,
dolefully. " It's too late to stay out any longer.
Let us go home."

They went home sadder but not much wiser
little girls. They did not realize that the respect-
able elderly person had had a delightful, relatable
joke at the expense of their innocent little mater-
nal souls.

io8 The One I Knew the Best of All

Evening after evening they walked the Square
together, watching. But they never saw the new
baby again, or the sardonic elderly female who
carried it.

It is only a thing not far away from Paradise-
not yet acclimatized to earth — who can so trust-
ingly believe and be so far befooled.

CHAPTER VII.

The Secretaire

I WONDER why it was called the Secretaire?
Perhaps it had resources the Small Person never
knew of. It looked like a large old-fashioned ma-
hogany book-case, with a big drawer which formed
a ledge, and with a cupboard below. Until she
was seven or eight years old she did not " dis-
cover" the Secretaire. She knew that it existed,
of course, but she did not know what its values
were. She used to look at its rows and rows of
books and sigh, because she knew they were
"grown-up books" and she thought there was
nothing in them which could interest her.

They were such substantially bound and serious-
looking books. No one could have suspected
them of containing stories — at least, no inexperi-
enced inspector. There were rows of volumes
called " The Encyclopaedia," rows of stout vol-
umes of Blackwood's Magazine, a row of poets, a
row of miscellaneous things with unprepossess-
ing bindings, and two rows of exceedingly ugly
brown books, which might easily have been sus-
pected of being arithmetics, only that it was of

no The One I Knew the Best of All

course incredible that any human creature, how-
ever lost, could have been guilty of the unseemly
brutality of buying arithmetics by the dozen.

The Small Person used to look at them some-
times with hopeless, hungry eyes. It seemed so
horribly wicked that there should be shelves of
books — shelves full of them — which offered noth-
ing to a starving creature. She was a starving
creature in those days, with a positively wolfish
appetite for books, though no one knew about it
or understood the anguish of its gnawings. It
must be plainly stated that her longings were
not for " improving' books. The cultivation she
gained in those days was gained quite uncon-
sciously, through the workings of a sort of rabies
with which she had been infected from birth. At
three years old she had begun a life-long chase
after the Story. She may have begun it earlier,
but my clear recollections seem to date from
Herod, the King, to whom her third year intro-
duced her through the medium of the speckled
Testament.

In those days, I think, the Children's Century
had not begun. Children were not regarded as
embryo intellects, whose growth it is the pleasure
and duty of intelligent maturity to foster and pro-
tect. Morals and manners were attended to, des-
perate efforts were made to conquer their natural
disinclination to wash their hands and faces, it

The Secretaire 1 1 1

was a time-honored custom to tell them to "make
less noise," and I think everybody knelt down in
his night-gown and said his prayers every night
and morning. I wish I knew who was the origin-
ator of the nursery verse which was a kind of
creed :

" Speak when you're spoken to,

Come when you're called,
Shut the door after you,
And do as you're told.

The rhyme and metre were, perhaps, not fault-
less, but the sentiments were without a flaw.

A perfectly normal child knew what happened
in its own nursery and the nurseries of its cousins
and juvenile friends; it knew something of the
romances of Mrs. Barbauld and Miss Edgeworth,
and the adventures related in Peter Parley's
" Annual." Religious aunts possibly gave it hor-
rible little books containing memoirs of dreadful
children who died early of complicated diseases,
whose lingering developments they enlivened by
giving unlimited moral advice and instruction to
their parents and immediate relatives, seeming,
figuratively speaking, to implore them to " go
and do likewise," and perishing to appropriate
texts. The Small Person suffered keen private
pangs of conscience, and thought she was a wicked
child, because she did not like those books and

H2 The One I Knew the Best of All

had a vague feeling of disbelief in the children.
It seemed probable that she might be sent to per-
dition and devoured by fire and brimstone because
of this irreligious indifference, but she could not
overcome it. But I am afraid the Small Person
was not a normal child. Still she really could not
help it, and she has been sufficiently punished,
poor thing, even while she has been unduly re-
warded. She happened to be born, as a clever
but revoltingly candid and practical medical man
once told her, with a cerebral tumor of the Ima-
gination.

Little girls did not revel in sumptuous libraries
then. Books were birthday or Christmas pres-
ents, and were read and re-read, and lent to other
little girls as a great favor.

The Small Person's chase after the Story was
thought to assume the proportions of a crime.

" Have you any books you could lend me?" she
always ended by asking a new acquaintance.

" That child has a book again ! " she used to hear
annoyed voices exclaim, when being sent up or
down stairs, on some errand, she found something
to read on the way, and fell through the tempter.
It was so positively unavoidable and inevitable
that one should forget, and sink down on the
stairs somewhere to tear the contents out of the
heart of a few pages, and it was so horrible, and
made one's heart leap and thump so guiltily, when

The Secretaire 113

one heard the voice, and realized how bad, and
idle, and thoughtless, and disobedient one was.

It was like being conquered by a craving for
drink or opium. It was being a story-maniac.

It made her rude, too, and it was an awful thing
to be rude ! She was a well-mannered enough
child, but when she went to play with a friend
in a strange nursery, or sitting-room, how was it
possible to resist just looking at a book lying on a
table ? Figure to yourself a beautiful, violently
crimson, or purple, or green book, ornamented
with gorgeous, flaring designs in gilt, and with a
seductive title in gilt letters on the back, and ima-
gine how it could be possible that it should not
fill one's veins with fever.

If people had just understood and had allowed
her to take such books and gallop through them
without restraint. (She always galloped through
her books, she could not read them with reason-
able calmness.) But it was rude to want to read
when people wanted to talk or play with you, and
so one could only breathlessly lift the corner of a
leaf and devour half a dozen words during some
momentary relief from the other person's eye.
And it was torment. And notwithstanding her
sufferings, she knew that it was her fate to be fre-
quently discussed among her friends as a little
girl who was rude enough " to read when she

comes to see you."
8

U4 1 he One I Knew the Best of All

As she did not develop with years into an en-
tirely unintelligent or unthinking person, there
may lie a shade of encouragement to anxious
parents in the fact that she was not conscious of
any thirst for " improving " reading. She wanted
stories — any kind of stories — every kind — any-
thing from a romance to a newspaper anecdote.
She was a simple, omnivorous creature. She had
no precocious views about her mind or her intel-
lectual condition. She reflected no more on her
mind than she did on her plump legs and arms—
not so much, because they were frequently made
red and smarting by the English east winds — and
it did not occur to her that she had an intellectual
condition. She went to school because all little
girls did, and she learned her lessons because only
in that manner could she obtain release at twelve
in the morning and four in the afternoon. She
seemed always to know how to read, and spell-
ing had no difficulties for her ; she rather liked ge-
ography, she thought grammar dull, and she ab-
horred arithmetic. Roman and Grecian and
English history, up to the times of the Georges,
she was very fond of. They were the Story she
was in chase of. Gods and goddesses, legends
and wars, Druids and ancient Britons, painted
blue, worshipping in their groves, and fighting
with their clubs and spears against the splendid
Romans in their chariots — these fed the wolf

The Secretaire 115

which gnawed her innocent vitals. The poor,
half-savage Briton, walking in wonder through
the marvellous city of his captors, and saying
mournfully, " How could you who have all this
splendor wish to conquer and take from me such
a poor country as mine' -this touched her heart.
Boadicea the Queen was somehow a wild, beauti-
ful, majestic figure — Canute upon the sea-shore,
commanding the sea to recede, provided the
drama — and Alfred, wandering in the forest, and
burning the cakes in the neat-herd's hut, was
comedy and tragedy at once, as his kinghood
stood rebuked before the scolding woman, ignor-
ant of his power. Henry the Eighth, Elizabeth
and Bloody Mary, Richard Cceur de Lion, Rich-
ard the Third, and the poor little Princes in the
Tower — one could read their stories again and
again ; but where the Georges began romance
seemed to fade away, and the Small Person was
guilty of the base treason of being very slight-
ly interested in the reign of Her Most Gracious
Majesty the Queen.

" 1 don't care about the coal and cotton reigns,"
she said. " They are not interesting. Nothing
happens." Lempriere's " Classical Dictionary '
w^as a treasure to be clutched at any moment — to
keep in a convenient corner of the desk, so that,
when one put one's head under the lid to look for
pens or pencils, one could snatch just one scrap

n6 The One I Knew the Best of All

of a legend about a god or a goddess changed
into something as a punishment or to escape
somebody or other.

Remembering these ill-satisfied hungers, her
own childhood being a thing of the past, and the
childhood of young things of her own waiting for
its future, she gave them books as she gave them
food, and found it worthy of note that, having
literature as daily bread and all within reach be-
fore them, they chose the "improving' things of
their own free will. It interested her to ponder
on the question of whether it was because they
were never starving and ravenous, or that instruc-
tion of to-day is made interesting, or whether
they were by nature more intelligent than herself.

It was an indescribably dreary day when she
discovered the gold mine in the Secretaire. I
have a theory that no one can really know how
dreary a rainy day can be until they have spent
one in an English manufacturing town. She did
not live at Seedley at that time, and as in her rec-
ollections of the Back Garden of Eden the sun
always seemed to have been shining on roses and
apple-blossoms, in Islington Square it seemed al-
ways to be raining on stone pavements and slate
roofs shining with the wet. One did not judge
of the weather by looking at the sky. The sky
was generally gray when it was not filled with
dirty but beautiful woolly-white clouds, with

The Secretaire 117

small patches of deep blue between. It was the
custom to judge what was happening by looking
at the slates on the roofs. There seemed to be
such lots of slates to look out at when one went
to a window.

" The slates are quite wet ! ' was the awful sen-
tence which doomed to despair many a plan of
pleasure. They were always wet on the days
when one was to be taken somewhere to do some-
thing interesting.

Everything was wet on the day when she found
the gold mine. When she went to the Nursery
window (the Nursery being a back room on the
third story) she looked down on the flags of wet
back yards — her own back yard and those of the
neighbors. Manchester back yards are never
beautiful or enlivening, but when the flagstones
are dark and shining, when moisture makes din-
gier the always dingy whitewashed walls, and
the rain splashes on their coping, they wear an
aspect to discourage the soul. The back yards
of the houses of the Square were divided by a
long flagged passage from the back yards of the
smaller houses in what wras called a " back street."
From the Nursery one looked down on their roofs
and chimneys, and was provided with a depressing
area of wet slates. It was not a cheering outlook.

The view from the Sitting-room was no more
inspiring and was more limited. It was on the

n8 The One I Knew the Best of All

ground floor and at the back also, and only saw
the wet flagstones. She tried it and retired. The
Drawing-room looked out on a large square ex-
panse of gravel enclosed by houses whose smoke-
grimed faces stared at one with blank, wet win-
dow eyes which made one low-spirited beyond
compare. She tried that also, and breaking down
under it, crept upstairs. It was in a room above
the Drawing-room that the Secretaire had its
place, and it was on turning in despair from the
window there, that her eye fell upon its rows of
uninviting-looking books.

Before that particular window there was a
chair, and it was a habit of hers to go and kneel
by it with her elbows on its seat and her chin on
her hands while she looked at the clouds.

This was because through all her earlier years
she had a queer sense of nearness to the sky
and of companionship with the clouds when she
looked up at them. When they were fleecy and
beautiful and floated in the blue, she imagined
them part of a wonderful country, and fancied
herself running and climbing over them. When
there was only a dull lead-colored expanse, she
used to talk to it in a whisper, expostulating, ar-
guing, imploring. And this she did that day.

" Oh ! " she whispered, " do open and let me see
some blue, please do ! If you please. You can do
it if you like. You might do it ! I would do it

The Secretaire 119

for you if I was a sky. Just a piece of blue and
some sun — just an island of blue ! Do! Do! Do!'

But it would not and did not. The rain came
drizzling down and the slates became wetter and
wetter. It was deadly — deadly dull.

The Nursery Sofa, the Green Armchair, the
very Doll itself seemed to have the life taken out
of them. The Doll sat in her chair in the Nur-
sery and glared in a glassy-eyed way into space.
She was nobody at all but a Doll. Mary Queen
of Scots, Evangeline, and the Aztec royalties
seemed myriads of miles away from her. They
were in the Fourth Dimension of Space. She
was stuffed with sawdust, her nose was a blunt
dab of wax, her arms were green kid, her legs
dangled, her toes turned in, and she wore an
idiotic wig. How could a Small Person " pre-
tend ' with a thing like that ! And the slates
were wet — wet — wet ! She rose from her kneel-
ing posture before the chair and wandered across
the room toward the Secretaire, to stare up at
the books.

" I wish I had something to read ! " she said,
wofully. " I wish there was something for me to
read in the Secretaire. But they are just a lot of
fat, grown-up books."

The bound volumes of Blackwood's Magazine
always seemed specially annoying to her, because
there were bits of red in the binding which might

I2O The One I Knew the Best of All

have suggested liveliness. But " Blackwood's
Magazine ! ' What a title ! Not a hope of a
story in that. At that period cheerfulness in
binding seemed to promise something, and the
title did the rest.

But she had reached the climax of childish
ennui. Something must be done to help her to
endure it.

She stared for a few moments, and then went
to another part of the room for a chair. It must
have been heavy for her, because English chairs
of mahogany were not trifles. She dragged, or
pulled, or carried it over to the Secretaire. She
climbed on it, and from there climbed on to the
ledge, which seemed at a serious distance from
the floor. Her short legs hung dangling as she
sat, and she was very conscious that she should
tumble off if she were not careful. But at last
she managed to open one of the glass doors, and
then, with the aid of cautious movement, the
other one. And then she began to examine the
books. There were a few — just a few — with lively
bindings, and of course these were the first she
took down. There was one in most alluring pale
blue and gold. It was called, " The Keepsake,"
or " The Garland," or " The Floral Tribute," or
something of that order. When she opened it
she found it contained verses and pictures. The
verses were beautifully printed plaints about

The Secretaire 121

ladies' eyes and people's hearts. There were
references to " marble brows," and " snowy bos-
oms," and " ruby lips," but somehow these charms
seemed to ramble aimlessly through the lines,
and never collect themselves together and form a
person one could be interested or see a story in.
The Small Person feverishly chased the Story
through pages of them, but she never came within
hailing distance of it. Even the pictures did not
seem real. They were engravings of wonderful
ladies with smooth shoulders, from which rather
boisterous zephyrs seemed to be snatching airily
flying scarves. They all had large eyes, high fore-
heads, exceedingly arched eyebrows, and ring-
lets, and the gentleman who wrote the verses
about them mentioned an ardent wish to " touch
his lute ' in their praise. Their Christian names
were always written under them, and nobody ever
was guilty of anything less Byronic than Leonora,
or Zulieka, or Haidee, or lone, or Irene. This
seemed quite natural to the Small Person, as it
would really have been impossible to imagine
any one of them being called Jane, or Sarah, or
Mary Anne. They did not look like it. But,
also, they did not look like a story.

The Small Person simply hated them as she
realized what fraudulent pretences they were.
They filled her with loathing and rage.

She was capable of strange, silent, uncontrol-

122 The One I Knew the Best of All

lable rages over certain things. The baffled chase
after the Story was one of them. She felt red
and hot when she thrust back the blue and gold
book into its place.

" You are a Beast ! " she muttered. " A Beast
-Beast- -Beast ! You look as if you were some-
thing to read — and you're nothing ! '

It would have been a pleasure to her to kick
the Keepsake all over the room, and dance on it.
But it was her Mamma's book. The next pretty
binding contained something of the same kind.
It enclosed the " Countess of Blessington," the
" Hon. Mrs. Norton," and " L. E. L." The first
two ladies did not interest her, because they
looked too much like the Eudoras and Irenes, but
somehow L. E. L. caused her to pause. It seemed
curious that a young lady should be called L. E.
L., but there was something attractive in her
picture. She was a slender little young lady in a
white muslin frock and a very big belt and buckle,
and there was something soft and prettily dreamy
in her small face. The Small Person did not
know why she looked like a real creature, and
made one feel vaguely sad, but it was very thrill-
ing to discover later that she was like Alice Ben-
bolt — that she also had been part of a sort of
story — and that, like Alice, she

"lay under the stone."

The Secretaire 123

It was when she had been put back on the shelf
that the Small Person was driven to take down a
volume of Blackwood' s.

I wonder how much depended upon her tak-
ing down that particular volume. I am more
than inclined to think that it was absolutely
necessary that she should have things to read.
I am also aware that no one knew how fierce
her childish longings were, and it would have
occurred to nobody about her that she had
any longings unfulfilled at all, unless it was a
desire for more "sweeties" than would have
been good for her. The kindly, gentle people
who loved her and took care of her thought
" Peter Parley's Annual ' enough for any little
boy or girl.

Why not? It was the juvenile literature pro-
vided for that day, and many children throve on
it. She was not an intellectually fevered-look-
ing Small Person at all. She was a plump, red-
cheeked little girl, who played vigorously, and
had a perfect appetite for oatmeal-porridge, roast
mutton, and rice pudding.

And yet I can imagine that, under some circum-
stances, a small, imperfect, growing thing, de-
voured by some rage of hunger it cannot reason
about or understand, and which is forever unsatis-
fied, might, through its cravings, develop some
physical fever which might end by stilling the

124 The One I Knew the Best of All

ever-working brain. But this may only be the
fancy of an imaginative mind.

The Blackivood was a big book and heavy. She
opened it on her knee — and it opened at a Story !

She knew it was a story, because there were so
many short lines. That meant conversation — she
called it " talking." If you saw solid blocks of
printed lines, it was not very promising, but if
you saw short lines and broken spaces, that meant
" talking ' -and you had your Story.

Why do I remember no more of that story than
that it was about a desolate moorland with an un-
used, half-forgotten well on it, and that a gentle-
man— (who cannot have been a very interesting
character, as he is not remembered clearly) — being
considered superfluous by somebody, was disposed
of and thrown into it in the role of a Body? It
was his body which was interesting, and not him-
self, and my impression is that the story was not
specially fascinating — but it was a Story, and if
there was one in the fat volumes there must be
others — and the explorer looked with gloating
eyes at the rows of fat volumes — two whole rows
of them !

She took down others, and opening them, saw
with joy more " talking." There were stories in
all of them — some which seemed to be continued
from month to month. There was a long one
called " The Diary of a Physician," another called

The Secretaire 125

" Ten Thousand a Year " — this last, she gathered
in a few glances, contained the history of a person
called Tittlebat Titmouse — and was about a beau-
tiful Kate Aubrey, and her virtuous but unfortu-
nate family — and about a certain Lady Cecilia-
and, oh ! the rapture of it !

Her cheeks grew hotter and hotter, she read
fast and furiously. She forgot that she was
perched on the ledge, and that her legs dan-
gled, and that she might fall. She was perched
in Paradise — she had no legs — she could not

•

fall. No one could fall from a Secretaire filled
with books, which might all of them contain
Stories !

Before long she climbed up and knelt upon the
ledge so that she could be face to face with her
treasures, and reach even to the upper shelves.
With beating heart she took down volumes that
were not Blackwood's, in the wild hope that even
they might contain riches also. She was an excit-
able creature, and her hands trembled as she
opened them. Across a lifetime I remember that
her breath came quickly, and she had a queer feel-
ing in her chest. There were books full of poetry,
and, oh, Heaven, the poems seemed to be stories,
too !

There was a thing about an Ancient Mariner
with a glittering eye, another about St. Agnes's
Eve, another about a Scotch gentleman called

126 Tke One I Knew the Best of All

Marmion, others about some Fire Worshippers,
a Peri at the gate of Eden, a Veiled Prophet, a
Corsair, and a splendid long one about a young
man whose name was Don Juan. And then a
very stout book with plays in it, in queer old-
fashioned English. Plays were stories. There
were stories about persons called " Othello,"
" The Merchant of Venice," " Two Gentlemen of
Verona," " Romeo and Juliet," and a world of
others. She gasped with joy. It would take
months to finish them !

It was so tragic to finish a book.

" 1 wish I had something to read," she used to
say often.

" Where is that book I saw you with yester-
day ? "

" I've finished it," she used to answer, rather
sheepishly, because she knew they would reply :

" Then you can't have read it properly. You
couldn't have finished it in such a short time.
You must skip. Read it again."

Who wanted to read a thing again when a hun-
ger for novelty was in them ?

The top row of the shelves looked so unprom-
ising that she was almost afraid to spoil the
happiness by touching the books.

They looked ancient and very like arithmetics.
They were bound in ugly grayish boards with a
strip of brown down the back.

The Secretaire 127

She pulled herself up to read the titles. They
all seemed to belong to one edition. The one her
eyes seized on first was quite a shabby one.

" The Fair Maid of Perth," she read. " Waver-
ley Novels."

Novels were stories ! " The Fair Maid of
Perth." She snatched it from its place, she sat
on the ledge once more with her feet dangling.
" The Fair Maid of Perth." And all the rest were
like it ! Why, one might read forever !

Were the slates still wet? Was the gravelled
Square still sopping ? Did the flagged pavement
still shine ? Was the Doll still staring in her
chair — nothing but a Sawdust Thing ?

She knew nothing about any of them. Her
feet dangled, her small face burned, she bounded
to Perth with the Fair Maid. How long after-
ward a certain big bell rang she did not know.
She did not hear it. She heard nothing until a
nursery maid came in and brought her back to
earth.

" You naughty girl, Miss Frances. The tea-
bell has rung and you sitting here on your ma's
Secretary — with a book ! '

She gathered herself together and scrambled
off the ledge. She went down to tea, and the
thick slices of bread and butter deemed suitable
to early youth — but she had the gray and brown
volume under her arm.

128 The One I Knew the Best of AIL

The governess looked at her with the cold eye
of dignity and displeasure.

" You have a book," she said. " Put it down.
You are not allowed to read at table. It is very
rude."

CHAPTER VIII.

T/ie Party

THE Christmas holidays were a time of great
festivity, and they began with the " Breaking-
up." The " Breaking-up ' was a magnificent
function, and was the opening and event of the
season.

" We're going to break up in two weeks," little
girls of different schools said to each other ; " when
are you going to break up ? '

The Breaking-up was the delightful ending of
the school clays, and the rapturous beginning of
the holidays, and it was properly celebrated by a
party given by the ladies who were the proprie-
tresses of the school.

It was a glorious social event, looked forward
to through all the year, but it was not entirely
given up to the frivolous caperings of emanci-
pated youth. It had, indeed, a utilitarian signifi-
cance and importance in the minds of the host-
esses. It was, in fact, not all cakes and ale, though
cakes were plentiful and ale — in the form of ne-
gus and lemonade — flowed freely.

Not only the " young ladies and gentlemen " of
9

130 The One I Knew the Best of All

the scholastic establishment were invited, but
Mammas and Papas, and it was the Mammas and
Papas who were the serious feature of the enter-
tainment. The Papas did not always appear, but
no Mamma was ever absent unless subdued bv

mortal illness. Nothing less would have kept
one away. Papas were deterred by much less
serious reasons.

Only an ex-pupil, chastened by the seriousness
of years, could possibly describe the splendor of
the scene. Until thus chastened, his adjectives
would get the better of him.

Something magic was done to the entire estab-
lishment, which gave it a beautiful, awe-inspiring
air of not being the same house, and of having
nothing whatever to do with lessons ; in fact, with
anything at all but approaching holidays. Car-
pets were taken up, furniture was moved from one
place to another, or whisked out of sight when it
was in the way. Holly was hung and wreathed
about pictures, there were pink and white paper
roses, and from the centre of the ceiling of the
transformed drawing-room there hung candidly a
fine piece of mistletoe. Round this room, against
the wall, sat the Mammas and such stray Papas as
had been overcome by a sense of paternal duty or
by domestic discipline. The Mammas were al-
ways attired in their most imposing frocks. They
were frocks about which there was nothing: frivo-

The Party 131

lous — black, or gray, or purple, or brown silks or
satins ; and if they wore caps — which they usually
did — their caps were splendid. My impression is
that the English mamma of that day dressed at
twenty as she did at fifty, and that gayety and
youth expressed themselves merely in caps, which
ventured on white lace, and pink or blue ribbon,
instead of black lace and purple or dark red. All
Mammas appeared the same age to the Small Per-
son, and were alike regarded with the reverence
due to declining years. They formed an imposing
phalanx at the " Breaking-up."

" What are you going to wear at the Party ? '
every little girl asked every other little girl
some time during the weeks before the festal oc-
casion.

What one wore was an exceedingly brief white,
or pink, or blue, or mauve frock, exceedingly
beautiful stockings, exceedingly new slippers, and
an exceedingly splendid sash — and one's hair was
" done " in the most magnificent way. Some had
crimps, some had curls, some had ribbons, some
had round combs. The Small Person had rows
and rows of curls, and a round comb to keep them
out of her eyes.

The little boys had Eton jackets, broad and
spotless collars, and beautiful blue and red bows
for neckties. It was also the fashionable thing
for the straight-haired ones to be resplendently

132 The One I Knew the Best of All

curled by the hairdresser, which gave a finish-
ing- touch to their impressively shining and gala
air.

The pink and blue and white frocks and sashes
only added to the elated delight of the little girls,
I am sure. They enjoyed their slippers and tiny
white kid gloves (they had only one button then),
and were excited by their little lockets and neck-
laces, but I do not think the boys enjoyed their
collars and new jackets, or ever forgot that their
hair had been curled, until they reached the
supper-room and were handed oranges and tipsy-
cake.

But these exhilarations were not reached until
the serious business of the evening was over. It
was very serious to the Small Person. She dis-
liked it definitely, and never felt that the "Break-
ing-up " had begun until her share of it was over.
To walk into the middle of the room, to make
one's most finished little courtesy, and then, stand-
ing, surrounded by a circle of Mammas in their
best caps, to " say a piece of poetry," was not an
agreeable thing. I do not think her performance
ever distinguished itself by any special dramatic
intelligence. I know she was always devoutly
glad when it was over and she could make the
final courtesy and hastily retire. She also felt the
same sense of relief when she had struck the last
chord of the show " piece ' she was expected to

The Party 133

play upon the piano, and reached the last note of
her exhibition song. When one reflects that each
music pupil was called upon for a like perform-
ance, and that numberless careful recitations
were given, it is, perhaps, not unnatural that
Papas were not plentiful. But not a Mamma
flinched.

But after all this was over the Christmas Hol-
idays had begun. The short frocks and sashes
danced quadrilles and round dances with the
Eton jackets and spotless broad collars. There
was a Christmas-tree in the school -room and
upon and beneath it were such prizes as meri-
torious efforts had gained for accomplishments
or good conduct. In the dining-room there were
sandwiches and cake and oranges, and crackers
with mottoes within expressive of deep and ten-
der emotions. One jumped very much when
they went off, and the daring exchanged mottoes
with each other. Cowslip wine flowed freely,
and there was negus with bits of lemon floating
in it — in fact, one felt one's self absorbed in the
whirling vortex of society, and wondered how
grown-up people, to whom Parties were compar-
atively every -day affairs, could possibly walk
calmly on the surface of the earth. The Break-
ing-up was a glittering — a brilliant thing.

And it was only the beginning.

All through the three weeks' holiday there

134 The One I Knew the Best of All

were other entertainments almost as brilliant.
They would have been quite as brilliant only
that they were not the " Breaking-up." Every
little boy or girl, whose Mamma could indulge
in such a luxury, gave a Christmas Party. They
were all called Christmas Parties during these
holidays. And through all these festivities the
Small Person was conscious of a curious fatality
which pursued her, and which is perhaps worth
recording because it was a thing so human,
though she did not in the least comprehend its
significance.

Each time that a note arrived " hoping to have
the pleasure ' of her company — and that of her
sisters and brothers — wild exhilaration reigned.
Everybody began to be excited at once. A party
seemed a thing it was impossible to wait patiently
for. It got into one's head and one's body, and
made one dance about instead of walking. I do
not think this resulted from anticipation of the
polkas and games or the negus and tipsy-cake, or
was absolutely a consequence of the prospect of
donning the white frock and sash and slippers — it
was the Party that did it. Perhaps young birds
who have just learned to fly, young ducks in their
first plunge into a pond, young chanticleers who
have discovered they can crow, may feel some-
thing of the same elation and delight. It was
the Party !

The Party 135

And when such eventful evenings arrived what
a scene the Nursery presented ! How intoxicat-
ing the toilette was — from the bath to the snap-
ping of the clasp of the necklace which was the
final touch ! How one danced about, and broke
into involuntary outbursts of romps with one's
sisters ! How impossible it was to stand still
while one's hair was curled, and how the poor
nurse and governess reproached, reasoned, im-
plored for decorum, and at intervals appealed to
one's Mamma, who came in intending to restore
order with a word, and entering amid the chaos
of frocks and sashes and unbridled rapture, was
overwhelmed by its innocent uncontrollableness,
and said, without any real severity at all :

" Now, children ! You really must be quiet and
let yourselves be dressed ! You will never be
ready for the Party ! '

The last awful possibility usually restored order
for a few seconds, but it was impossible that it
should last long. Nature was too much for one.

The picture of the Nursery on such occasions is
one of those which remain to me. The bright
fire, which danced itself, the numberless small
garments scattered about, the Party frocks whose
sacredness entitled them to places apart which
seemed quite like Altars, the sashes lying on top
of them, the three unrestrainable small persons
darting about in various stages of undress, the

136 The One I Knciu the Best of All

nurse pursuing them with a view to securing
buttons or putting on slippers, the mirror in
which one saw reflected an excited, glorified
Party face, with large, dancing eyes, and round

cheeks which were no other shade than crimson
or scarlet. These are the details.

But the clasp of the necklace snapped at last,
the small white glove was buttoned, the small
wrap enfolded one's splendor, and the minute

The Party 137

after one was rolling through the streets, going
to the Party.

And then one was standing upon the steps and
the front door was opened, revealing a glittering
scene within, where numberless muslin or tarla-
tan frocks and Eton jackets passed up and down
the enchanted staircase, or hesitated shyly until
some hospitable person took charge of their tim-
idity.

To-day — even in the manufacturing towns in
England — the entertainments given to youth are
probably not of a nature as substantial as they
were then. They were not matters of mere ices
and fruits and salads then. By no means. The
Small Person herself, who was the proprietor of a
noble and well-rounded appetite, was frequently
conscious of staggering a little under the civilities
of hospitality. The sad, the tragic truth which is
the sting of life — that one can have Enough, and
that after it one wants no more — more than once
touched her with a shade of gentle, though un-
consciously significant, melancholy. She realized
no occult illustration and thought it a mere mat-
ter of cakes.

First there was tea. One sat with all the Party
at long tables. There were very buttery muffins
and crumpets and Sally-lunns, and preserves and
jellies and marmalade, and currant cake, and pot-
ted shrimps and potted beef, and thin bread-and-

138 The One I Knew the Best of All

butter and toast, and tea and coffee, and biscuits,
and one was asked to eat them all, whether one
was capable of it or not.

" Have another piece of muffin, dear," the
mamma of the occasion would say, with pressing
bounteousness. " Oh, come, you must, love — just
one piece — and some more strawberry jam ; you
have not made a good tea at all. Jane," to the
parlor-maid, " muffins and strawberry jam for
Miss Frances." And her voice was always so
amiable, and it was so hard to persist in saying,
" No, thank you, Mrs. Jones," with all the Party
looking on, that one tried again until it could only
have been through a special intervention of Provi-
dence that appalling consequences did not ensue.
And then when that was over one went into the
drawing-room, which was decorated with holly
and mistletoe, and where the party frocks and
Eton jackets at first exhibited a tendency to fight
shy of each other and collect in polite little groups
until somebody grown up interfered and made
them dance quadrilles or play " Hunt the Slipper"
or <4 Old Soldier." After that they began to en-
joy themselves. They were not precociously con-
ventional young persons. His first awkwardness
worn off, the Eton Jacket had no hesitation in
crossing the floor to the particular White Frock
seemins: desirable to him.

" Will you dance this waltz with me ? ' he

The Party

139

would say. Upon which the White Frock would
either reply :

" Yes, I will," or, " I've promised Jemmy Daw-
son," in which latter case the Eton Jacket cheer-
fully went and invited somebody else.

There were a great many polkas and schot-
tisches. These, in fact, were rather the popular
dances. They
were considered
better fun than
quadrilles. The
Party danced
them until it be-
came quite hot,
and the Eton
jackets were con-
strained to apply
handkerchiefs to
their heated
brows. To sub-
due this heat and

sustain exhausted nature, trays of lemonade and
negus and oranges and little cakes appeared,
borne by servant-maids in Party caps with rib-
bons. It was not supposed that a party could
subsist on air- -and supper would not be an-
nounced until nearly eleven. The oranges were
cut in quarters and halves so that they might be
easily managed, the negus was usually in a re-

140 The One I Knew the Best of All

splendent bowl with a ladle in it. Then the danc-
ing began again and there were more games and
the festivities became more and more brilliant.
The White Frocks whirled about with the Eton
Jackets, they were candidly embraced under the
mistletoe, the grown-up people looked on and
commented upon them in undertones and some-
times laughed a great deal. Sometimes in danc-
ing past a group one heard some one say, " Em-
my dances very well," or " How pretty Ma-
rian is ! ' or " Very fine boy, Jack Leslie ! '
And if one were Emmy or Marian or Jack
one blushed and tried to look as if one had not
heard.

It was generally in the midst of this whirl of
frocks and sashes, the gay strains of the dance-
music, the chattering, laughing voices, that the
Small Person found herself beset by that fatality
which has been referred to. It was a curious
thought which gave her a sense of restlessness
she did not like.

She was very fond of dancing. She was an
excitable Small Person, and the movement, the
music, the rhythm of it all exalted her greatly.
She was never tired and was much given to en-
tering into agreements with other White Frocks
and Eton Jackets to see which could outdance
the other. It was an exciting thing to do. One
danced until one's cheeks were scarlet and one's

The Party 141

heart beat, but one never gave up until some one
in authority interfered.

Having stopped- -laughing and panting and
standing1 with her hand against her little side as

o o

she watched the kaleidoscopic whirl, the music
and voices and laughter filling her ears, she so
often found she was asking herself a question, " Is
this the Party ? "

It seemed as if something in her insisted on
realizing that the joy looked forward to with
such excitement had absolutely materialized.

" Is this really the Party ?" she would say men-
tally. And then, to convince herself, to make it
real, " Yes, this is the Party. I am at the Party.
I have my Party frock on — they are all dancing.
This is the Party."

And yet as she stood and stared, and the gay
sashes floated by, she was restlessly conscious of
not being quite convinced and satisfied, and of
something which was saying,

" Yes — we are all here. It looks real, but
somehow it doesn't seem exactly as if it was the
Party."

And one does it all one's life. Everybody
dances, everybody hears the music, everybody
some time wears a sash and a necklace and
watches other White Frocks whirling by- -but
was there ever any one who really went to the
Party ?

CHAPTER IX.

The Wedding

A " GROWN-UP young lady ' was a very won-
derful being. She wore a long frock, sometimes
with numbers of flounces, she went to church in
a bonnet made of tulle and flowers, or velvet and
little plumes, she had rings on and possessed a
watch and chain. It was thrilling to contemplate
her from afar. It seemed impossible that one
could ever attain such dazzling eminence one's
self. She went to Balls. No one knew what a
Ball was, but it was supposed to be a speciallv
magnificent and glorified kind of Party. At Balls
grown-up gentlemen in dress suits, and with rare
flowers in their buttonholes, danced with the
young ladies who wore ethereal dresses, and per-
haps wreaths, and who carried bouquets. These
resplendent and regal beings talked to each other.
One did not know what they talked about, but
one was sure that their conversation was at once
sparkling, polished, and intellectual beyond meas-
ure, something like grammar, geography, and
arithmetic set with jewels of noble sentiment and
brilliant repartee. Only the most careful applica-

The Wedding 143

tion to the study of one's lessons, one's morals,
and one's manners could fit one to presume to
think that in coming ages one might aspire to
mingle with such society.

The proprietresses of the school at which the
Small Person spent her early educational years

•

were young ladies. But no one in the school
would have been irreverent enough to realize
this. Representing as they did education, author-
ity, information of the vastest, and experience of
the most mature dignity, one could not connect
the insignificance of youth with them. One of

O J

them was perhaps twenty-three, the other twenty-
four or five, and though neither wore caps, and
both wore ringlets, as the Mammas all seemed of
equal age, so these two young ladies seemed to be
of ripe years. One day, indeed, there was a grave
discussion amonsr the little o^irls as to what a^e

o o o

these dignified persons had attained, and one of
them heard it.

She was really a rounded, sparkling - eyed,
rather Hebe-like little creature, with a profusion
of wonderful black ringlets. It was the hour of
ringlets.

" And how old do you think I am ? ' she in-
quired of one of her pupils.

She was looking at them from behind her table,

with rather amused eyes, and suddenly the Small
Person, who was regarding her, became subtly

144 The One I Knew tlie Best of AIL

conscious of a feeling that it was possible that she
was younger than the Mammas. " How old ? '
said the girl who had been asked. " Well — I
should think — of course I don't know, but I should
think — about forty."

It was interesting, but seemed rather unnatural
that their friends and companions seemed to be
real young ladies. Was it possible that there
were real vouns: ladies whose recreation consisted

J O

in talking about Roman emperors, the boundaries
of Europe, the date when Richard I. began to
reign, Lindley Murray's impressions on the sub-
ject of personal pronouns, and the result of the
" coming over ' of William the Conqueror ?
Could it be that when they took tea together
they liked to be asked suddenly, " Who was the
first King of all England?" or "What is Mac-
clesfield noted for?" or "Where are the Oural
Mountains?'

It seemed as if it would be more than human
nature could endure to have such delicate ques-
tions as these pressed and dwelt upon, in com-
bination with muffins and thin bread-and-butter,
but what else could they talk about ? Uneducated
flippancies were impossible.

A faint suggestion of other possibilities was
shadowed forth in the imaginative mind of the
Small Person by her introduction one day to two
pink silk dresses. They were shown to her by

The Wedding 145

the little sister of the two teachers, and they were
to be worn by these sedate persons to a Ball.

The ladies were the elder daughters of one of
the 2/;/widowed gentlemen in reduced circum-
stances. He had begun life as a presumable heir
to an old estate and fortune. Fate had played
him a curious trick which disinherited him, and
ended in his living in the Square, and in his
daughters keeping a " select seminary for young
ladies and gentlemen." But they had relatives
on whom Fate had not played tricks, and there
were some young ladies in beautiful little bonnets,
who were their cousins, and who came to see
them, in a carnage, and were considered radiant.

" The carriage from Grantham Hall is standing
before the Hatleigh's door," some child would
announce to another. " Let us go and walk past.
It is Miss Eliza who is in it, and you know she's
the prettiest. She has a lavender silk frock on
and a lace parasol."

There were legends of marvellous enjoyments at
Grantham Hall. Perhaps they were all results of
the imaginations of tender years, but they con-
tinually floated in the air. Perhaps the younger
sisters were rather proud of the possession of
cousins who went to Balls and had such bonnets.

But it is a fact without doubt that the two pink
silk frocks were preparation for some gala event

at Grantham.
10

146 The One I Knew the Best of AIL

The Best Friend was one of the younger sisters
(their name was legion), and it was she who first
imparted to the Small Person the thrilling con-
fidence that Sister and Janey had each a beautiful
pink frock to wear at the party at Grantham.

" They are both lying on the bed in the spare
bedroom," said the Best Friend. " The party is
to-night, and they are all ready to put on. I
wish Sister would let me take you in to look at
them."

The little lady who was supposed to be forty
was always called " Sister." She was the eldest
of a family of nine. On being appealed to she
was sufficiently indulgent to give permission to
the Best Friend to exhibit the festal glories.

So the Small Person was taken into the spare
bedroom. It was no trivial incident. The two
pink silk frocks lay upon the bed, the waiting
wings of two brilliant butterflies, at the moment
setting copies in a chrysalis state. They had
numberless tiny flounces " pinked out" in lovely
little scallops round the edge, they had short
puffs for sleeves, and they had low bodices with
berthas of tulle and tiny rosebuds around them.

The Small Person positively blushed with ad-
miration and rapture. How could Sister, being
attired in a thing like this, lift her dark eyes to
the grown-up gentleman waltzing with her and
say to him with proper firmness:

The Wedding

147

Fifteen from fifty-seven and how many re-
main ? '

The Small Person felt it would be impossible,
though she knew nothing whatever of the circum-
stances under which it was
not impossible for a very
bold grown-up gentleman
to say :

" My charming Sis-
ter, my education
has been neglect-
ed, but if you
will give me
the fifty-sev-
en and per-
m it me

148 77ie One I Knew the Best of All

to take the fifteen away, I will endeavor to calcu-
late."

It might easily have been Sister and Janey who
were the principal features of the two marriages
which were the first nuptial ceremonies appear-
ing upon the stage of the Small Person's existence.
But it was two of the cousins who were the
brides — two of the young ladies from Grantham
Hall.

Rumors of the approaching ceremonies being
whispered in the school-room, the most thrilling
interest was awakened. The prospect was more
exciting than the breaking-up itself. There was
something at once festive and imposing about
it. Opinions as to the nature of the ceremony
were numerous and varied. No one had ever
attended a wedding, and yet somehow nearly
everyone could supply some detailed informa-
tion.

Whispered conversation on the subject could
not be wholly repressed, even by authority.
From some mysterious reliable source it was as-
certained that the principal features of the sacred
contract were that the gro \vn-up young lady wore
a singularly resplendent and ethereal white frock,
that she was wreathed with orange-blossoms and
adorned with a white veil accompanied by a
splendid bouquet and a grown-up gentleman.
The grown-up gentleman was not dwelt upon par-

The Wedding 149

ticularly ; one always asked of the bride, " Is she
pretty ? ' but nobody ever inquired if he was
pretty. He seemed immaterial, so to speak, and
when not slurred over he seemed somehow to be
regarded with some slight vague distrust.

Every pupil knew what the bride was going to
be dressed in, what her veil was made of, what
flowers were to compose her bouquet, but no in-
terest whatever was felt in the possible costume
qf the grown-up gentleman.

The Small Person, while interested in him as a
mystery, was conscious that he Avas regarded as a
sort of necessary flaw in the occasion. The Story
gave him interest to her. She had never seen
him, but recollections of Ernest Maltravers, Quen-
tin Durward, and the Master of Ravenswood gave
him a nebulous form. The wedding was to be a
double one, the two sisters being married at once,
consequently there were two grown-up gentlemen
involved, and it was rather soul-stirring to hear a
vague rumor that one of them — who was very
handsome, having dark eyes and a straight nose
-was not smiled upon by the bride's papa, and
that he had forced his way to the altar through
serious parental opposition. He was not consid-
ered a sufficiently staid and well-to-do grown-up
gentleman. There were suggestions of the Mas-
ter of Ravenswood in this.

" I wonder if they like each other very much ? '

150 The One I Knew the Best of All

this sentimental little Person rather timidly in-
quired.

But no one seemed to know anything beautiful
and romantic about it, so she combined with his
straight nose and dark eyes the misfortunes and
attributes of all the heroes in the " Secretaire,"
and found it thrilling that he was on the point of
leading to the shrine the veil and the orange-blos-
soms, and thus being made happy forever after.

What a morning it was when the wedding took
place. There were no lessons. The two young
teachers were to be among the bridemaids. They
were to wear veils and wreaths themselves, and
several of the most decorous little girls were
going to the church to look at them. They went
in a body, attired in their best frocks and feeling
quite light-headed with their exalted sense of an-
ticipation.

The sun was shining brilliantly, everything was
shining brilliantly one felt. The cabs and omni-
buses seemed to rattle by with a gay, rather reck-
less air, the passers-by moved more briskly than
usual, in fact there was in the atmosphere a sug-
gestion that everybody and everything must be
going to a wedding. Everybody of course must
know about it and be interested, indeed there
were evidences of interest in the fact that as
people passed by they nearly always glanced at
the open church door, and a few rather shabby

The Wedding 1 5 t

persons having loitered about the entrance, their
number continued adding to itself until they
formed a waiting group.

The Small Person and her companions waited
also. Nobody could have thought of going into
the church until the carriages had arrived and
they had seen everybody get out, not to mention
the fact that being inexperienced they were timid
and lacked the courage to take any bold steps.
They stood very much in awe of an official in a
sort of gown who was known as the " Parroter,"
and whose function it was to show people to
pews on Sunday and look pained and annoyed
when little boys sneezed too frequently or drop-
ped things.

" Perhaps the Parroter wouldn't let us in," said
someone. " Dare you ask him? '

But nobody dared do anything until the bridal
party arrived. It seemed as if it would never
come. The waiting in the street seemed to last
hours and hours, and was filled with tumultuous
agitations caused by false alarms that the car-

riages were coming.

"Here they are! Here they are!" somebody
would cry. " I'm sure that's a carriage turning
the corner down the street. Don't you see it ? '
And then everyone became elated and moved ner-
vously for fear she had not a good place, and
pulses quickened and hearts beat — and the car-

152 The One I Knew the Best of All

riage probably turned out to be a cab. They
wandered up and clown restlessly to make the
time pass more quickly, and one or two bold
spirits even went and peeped into the church,
but retired precipitately at the approach of the
" Parroter." The Small Person — after what ap-
peared to her some sixteen hours of suspense
and agitation- - was pervaded by an awful se-
cret fear that at the last moment Quentinravens-
woodmaltravers had been forever tabooed by
his bride's family and there would be no wedding
at all.

But at last, at last the bells began to ring that
loud, gay, hilarious wedding-chime, the bell-notes
seeming: to race and tumble over each other in

their hurry to be joyful.

There wras something curiously intoxicating
about it. It was the Party over again — only more
than the Party. The Small Person looked up at
the bell-tower and the blue sky behind it. What
exquisite blue sky ! What soft little fleecy white
clouds ! What a beautiful day ! " Happy is the
bride that the sun shines on." Someone had said
that, and the sun was shining ! The carriages
were there and the crowd about her wras stirring
Avith excited curiosity. But she saw only vapor-
ous whiteness and flowers and dowagers' rich
colors, with blots of grown-up gentlemen. The
sun was shining, the bells were chiming, the

The Wedding 153

church was filling". Happy was the bride that
the sun shone on. But all brides were hap-
py ? The sun always shone on them. What a
strange, delightful, exalting event it was to be
Married !

She never knew how she was led or dragged or
hustled into the church. Some other little girl
more practical and executive than herself man-
aged her. But presently she was there, ensconced
in a high pew in the cathedral grayness. The
church was a cathedral and impressed her deeply.
She felt religious and wondered if she ought not
to say her prayers. She was not calm enough to
see detail — she was too emotional a Small Person,
and this was the first time she had seen anyone
married. The vaporous whiteness, the floating
veils and flowers were grouped about the altar,
the minister seemed to be taking the brides and
the grown-up gentlemen to task at some length.
He called them Dearly Beloved, but appeared to
address rather severe warnings to them. The
Small Person had a vague feeling that he was of
the opinion that they would come to a bad end if
not admonished in time. She hoped they would
not — particularly Quentinravenswoodmaltravers,
whose straight nose she had been too deeply'
moved to single out from the rest. For a moment
or so she felt that it was so solemn to be married
that it was almost conducive to low spirits. But

154 The One T Knew the Best of All

she cheered up after the minister appeared to
have relented and let them off and they moved
away to the vestry. Then there was a stir among
the spectators, which soon became a bustle, and
she was led or dragged or hustled out into the
sunshine and renewed joyous clangor of the bells.
There was a great bustle outside. The crowd
of lookers-on had increased, and a policeman was
keeping it back, while the carriages stood in line
and closed up one by one as the floating frocks
and veils, and dowagers' velvets and satins, and
blots of grown-up gentlemen filled them, and were
driven away. The Small Person watched it all as
in a dream. The bells raced and clamored, the
sun shone brighter than ever. She was only a
Small Person who had really nothing to do with
these splendors and who no more contemplated
the magnificent prospect of being married herself
than she contemplated being crowned in West-
minster Abbey. Such glories as these were only
for grown-up people. But they were beautiful-
beautiful !

The young ladies who had been married — in
full panoply of white satin and wreaths and veils
-were each handed into a carriage by the grown-
up gentleman they belonged to, who got into the
carriage also.

After they had all driven away, the bells had
ceased their clamor, and the crowd dispersed, one

Tk e I Vedding 1 5 5

sharp-eyed little person made a most interesting
statement :

" I saw in as their carriage drove past," she an-
nounced, " and he had Miss Grantham's head on
his shoulder."

"Which one was it?" inquired the Small Per-
son. She was sure it was Quentinravenswoodmal-

travers.

And inquiry proved that it was.

CHAPTER X.

The Strange Tiling

IT seems inevitable that each individual, in look-
ing back to childhood and the school-room, should
recall distinct memories of certain children who
somehow stood out from among their fellows,
made prominent or set apart a little by some
beauty, strength, or cleverness, or some unattrac-
tiveness or disability. There is, perhaps, in every
school-room, the girl or boy who is handsome,
who has fine eyes or splendid hair, the one who
learns lessons with amazing quickness, the one
who is specially well-dressed and has an air of well-
being, the one who is dull or common-looking, the
one who is somehow commoner than anyone else,
the one who has an easy, fearless manner, and is
suspected of being the " favorite " of those in au-
thority, the one, poor child, who is physically ugly
and unpleasant, and cannot rise against the fate
which has treated him so cruelly.

The Small Person knew each of these types.
She was not consciously an aristocratic little Per-
son, but she had an intense, silent dislike to, and
impatience of, the " common ' ones. She found

The Strange Thing 157

them antipathetic to a degree which was trying,
as one of them happened to be amusing and
another really good-natured. She continually
tried to adjust herself to them, but the " common-
ness" always interfered. It made the good-nat-
ured one ridiculous and the amusing one odious
and unprincipled. Among the younger ones there
was a little boy who impressed her without actually
being interesting. He was not clever, he was not
pretty, he was not engaging. He was an inoffen-
sive little fellow, and set apart in her imagination
by a mysterious unfortunateness. As I look back
I think it possible that he was really a shy and
gentle little fellow, on whom one's maturity might
look with great tenderness. The Small Person
felt a vague kindliness for him, though she was
not at all intimate with him.

" He is very delicate," people said of him, and
she could not but regard him with a sort of curi-
ousness. She was not delicate, no one belonging
to her was delicate. She belonged to a family of
romping, red-blooded creatures, and the idea of
being " delicate ' seemed mysterious as well as
mournful.

And he had such a strange, unnatural look. He
was slight and insignificant, light-haired and gray-
eyed, and he had a peculiarity marked among the
groups of plump and rosy juveniles about him-
instead of being pink or rose-colored, his cheeks

158 The One I Knew the Best of All

and lips were bluish purple. They were distinct-
ly far from the normal color. They were not red
at all, and sometimes they looked quite violet.

" What a queer color Alfie's lips are," was often
said. " Isn't it funny ? They're blue, and so are
his cheeks."

And then someone would say wisely, and rather
proud of the superior knowledge :

" It's because he has heart disease. I heard Miss
Janey speaking about it. He may die quite sud-
denly."

And then someone would know stories of peo-
ple who had died suddenly, and would relate them,
and a sense of awe would pervade everybody, as
it always did when Death was spoken of — though
it was so impossible, so impossible that any of them-
selves could die. People did die, of course, peo-
ple who had lived to be quite old, or who had
caught scarlet fever in some phenomenal way, but
somehow they seemed to belong to a world quite
far off and quite different to the one in which one's
self lived — to the world of the Nursery and the
Square, and the Schoolroom where one did one's
sums wrong and could not remember the date of
Henry VIII.'s marriage with Anne Boleyn. Oh,
no, that would be too incongruous !

It gave the Small Person a curious feeling to try
to realize that the plain, quiet little boy with the
blue lips might die — die quite suddenly. Once she

The Strange Thing 159

gave him a new slate-pencil because of it, though
she did not tell him why, and was perhaps scarce-
ly definite herself about it. She used to forget
her geography in looking at him questioningly
when he did not see her.

It must have been one of the " common ' ones
who one morning came to her, wearing an air of
excited elation in her consciousness of having
startling news to impart, and who greeted her
with—

" Have you heard about Alfie Burns?'
" No," she answered ; " what about him ? >:
" He's dead" said the news-bearer. " He wasn't
at school yesterday — and he died this morning."

So the Strange Thing came among them into
the school-room — among the forms and desks and
battered books, making itself in an unreal way as
real as the ink-stands and slate-pencils. It had
come to Alfie Burns, with his little ordinary face
and lank hair, and yet it still remained impossible.
It had come to Alfie Burns — but it could not come
to any of the rest of them. Somehow he must
have been " different." He was " delicate ' and
had that queer color. At any rate he was " differ-
ent " now, and seemed impossible, too. There was
a curious intense craving for detail among the
older ones. Everyone wanted to know how he
had died, and if he had said anything. In the
books of memoirs the little boy or girl always

160 The One I Knew the Best of All

said " last words," which were a sort of final script-
ural or instructive effort. They were usually
like this :

" Father," said James, between his paroxysms of
agony, " try to be a better man that you may meet
me in Heaven."

" Brother Thomas," said Mary Ann, faintly, " do
as mother tells you and obey your Sabbath-school
teacher."

" Please do not swear any more, Uncle William
Henry," said little Jane, as her mother wiped
the death-damp from her brow. " I shall be in
Heaven in a few minutes and I want you to
come."

Remembering these thinsrs one wondered what

o o ^

Alfie's " last words ' had been. It would have
seemed almost impossible that anyone could die
without last words. Wicked people always ex-
pired in frightful torment, using profane language
or crying for mercy or writhing with remorse be-
cause they had not been better before they were
taken ill. Alfie had been a sort of indefinite, in-
significant little boy. He was not naughty, but
his goodness had a passive negative quality and
he never reproved or instructed anyone. So it
was difficult to adjust one's self to the situation,
and imagine how the Strange Thins: would find

o o o

him when it came.

And nobody knew any detail. There seemed

The Strange Thing 161

to be none. He had died, and of course it was
supposable that his parents had cried, and we
knew he would be buried. And though the event
was discussed and discussed from all points of
view this was all anyone knew.

No one had ever been to his house or seen his
parents. They were quiet business people who
did not belong to the Square, and, as far as the
school seemed to know, he had no brothers or sis-
ters and must have had a rather dull life. He
did not seem to have any particular companions
or to invite people to his house to play or to have
tea with him.

According to all orthodox beliefs — and in an
innocent way nothing could have been more or-
thodox than all the school—he had gone to
Heaven and was an Angel.

This the Small Person found a tremendous
problem to grasp. I know that it pervaded her
for days, and I wonder why she did not talk
about it to somebody grown up. Perhaps it
was her infant English habit of reserving her
sentiments and emotions, combined with her se-
cret consciousness that she was so little and
that the grown-up people were so big that they
could not really understand one another's point
of view. Of course, to people who knew all
about Death and Heaven and Angels, her re-
marks would seem silly and trivial — perhaps
n

1 62 The One I Knew the Best of All

even disrespectful. She did not ask anything,
but was oppressed and permeated by a vague
sadness and sense of unexplained things.

Heaven was a place without laws or boun-
daries. Anything could be done there — if one
once got in — and everything was there. There
was a Great White Throne, there were streets
of gold, and walls built of " all manner of pre-
cious stones." The stones she remembered
principally were the chalcedony and sardonyx,
sardius, chrysolite, beryl, and chrysoprasus, be-
cause they had strange names, and she wondered
what color they were. And there was a Woman
on a " scarlet-colored beast, full of names of
blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns,"
and though she was in Heaven she was " drunk-
en with the blood of the saints." And there
were Dragons and Beasts, and there were El-
ders and Pale Horses and Golden Candlesticks
and Golden Vials. And the Beasts were full of
eyes before and behind and had six wings each,
and the horses had breast-plates of fire and ja-
cinth and brimstone, and heads of lions, and fire
and smoke came out of their mouths. It was all
in Revelations and so it was true. Heaven was
like that, and Alfie Burns had gone there — out
of the school-room and the atmosphere of ink-
stands and copy-books, from making mistakes
in his sums and cleaning his slate with an un-

The Strange Thing 163

savory " slate -rag' or sponge, from looking
yearningly out at the other slates on the roofs to
see if it was raining and there was no prospect of
playing. And now suddenly he was an Angel and
wore wings. Wings seemed as impossible as the
Strange Thing which had happened to him. It
was so difficult to adjust them to his little blue-
lipped face and small, insignificant figure which
his clothes seemed always rather too large for.

" But he would be quite different," the Small
Person persisted obstinately to herself as her
only consolation. " He would be quite different
and he would be dressed in white robes."

The draperies she tried to see him in were
something of the nature of a very voluminous,
very white night-gown — but at all events they
were " quite different." The interest of all this
is that what we begin with at seven we seem to
end with at seventy. How are we less vague-
what more do we know ? Nothing — nothing-
nothing, but that whatever it is — wherever it is
-it is " quite different."

In the years which lie between we have learned
more geography, more astronomy, we have
learned that the blue is space and the clouds
are vapor, but what more definite, but that we
clamor for something, we plead for something,
we must have something, we ought to have some-
thing " quite different."

164 The One I Knew the Best of All

Somebody - probably it was the executive,
practical little girl who had had the energy and
ability to hustle the vague Small Person into the
church at the Grantham wedding- - somebody
proposed that two or three select ones should go
to Alfie's home and ask to be allowed to " see '
him.

The Small Person was awed. She wanted
very much to see him- -what was left of him
after he had become an angel. " His soul has
gone to Heaven, his body is only dust," that was
what was always said. She somehow wanted to
look at the poor little body which was only dust.

" Perhaps we oughtn't to go," she said, timor-
ously. " Perhaps they won't like us to see him."

But she was taken. Somebody else had been
and nobody had seemed to dislike their going.
The Small Person, I have frequently reflected,
was always taken to places. She was not a strong
Small Person, except in unsuspected powers of
keeping quiet under some strong emotions, and
in possessing a certain silent steadiness of pur-
pose when she meant to do a thing. Perhaps
her strength was and always has been that she
quite unconsciously looked as if she meant noth-
ing while she really meant a great deal. But
that was probably far less a moral or mental qual-
ity than a gift amiably bestowed by Nature in a
lavish moment. The leading spirits took her to

The Strange Thing 165

the place under their charge. Afterward she did
not seem to remember anything about the house,
even its entrance or stairway — anything but a
certain dull, dreary little front parlor in it. This
was most likely because she remembered the lit-
tle dismal room and what was there so strangely
well.

It was such a dull, unpicturesque room, small
and unadorned, and dreary beyond measure. At
least so it seemed to the Small Person, though
she saw no detail of it but a stiff horsehair-cov-
ered sofa against a wall. On this sofa lay some-
thing covered with a white sheet. This was what
they had come to see. Somehow the room, the
sofa, the whole atmosphere of the colorless dul-
ness seemed like the little unornamental fellow
himself, with his lank hair, his ill-fitting clothes,
and his mild, small, unattractive, bluish face. The
person who had taken charge of them drew the
white sheet away, and the Small Person saw the
Strange Thing for the first time, with an awful
sense of desolateness and depression.

Even the Strange Thing had not left the poor
little fellow beautiful. He seemed to have grown
very long ; he was clothed in an awesome gar-
ment of bluish white flannel, with ornamentation
of ugly stamped scalloped edges ; in accordance
with some belated grewsome fashion he had on
a strange muslin night-cap, whose stiff crimped

1 66 The One I Knew the Best of All

frill border made an unlovely setting for his poor
little still bluish face. It looked more dusky than
ever in its strange blue color, and his lips were
almost violet. A line of lifeless gray showed
itself under the not entirely closed lids.

The Small Person stood and looked down at
this with a rather awful feeling. She did not
know what she had expected to see, but this
made her heart beat with dreary throbs. It was
not that she was exactly frightened, on the whole
she was not as frightened as she had expected to
be when she came face to face with the Strange
Thing, but she felt an indescribable awed dreari-
ness. She also wondered why she did not begin
to cry. She had imagined that at the sight of
the Strange Thing one would inevitably begin to
cry. She wondered if it was because she had no
heart that she did not. Ought one really to sob
bitterly at the sight of a little boy one had not
known at all well, and of whom one chiefly re-
membered that he had heart disease and blue
lips ?

" He is an Angel," she kept insisting, mentally.

" He has gone to Heaven.'

The girl who had taken her to the house whis-
pered to her, telling her to touch him. She had
touched him herself, and so had the others. This
appeared to be part of a ceremony. The Small
Person shrank very much. She felt that it would

The Strange Thing

167

be an awful thing to do. And yet she had heard
so much about a certain strange coldness — colder
than anything else — not the same thing as any
other coldness — as " cold as Death." There was
a fearsome longing to know what it was like.

And if one touched what the Strange Thing had
left, one did not dream about it. One could not
bear the thought of dreaming of the small room,
the horsehair sofa, and the poor little unlovely
object with the frilled muslin cap and eyelids not
quite closed.

1 68 The One I Knew tlie Best of All

She put out her hand and touched the unsmil-
ing cheek.

" As cold as Death ! ' It was not as cold as
she had imagined it would be. Not as cold as ice
or as cold as snow — and yet — and yet — it was un-
like anything else — a soft chillness which some-
how seemed to hold no possibility of its ever
being warmed. What she carried away from the
dreary little room when she left it was the mem-
ory of that soft chillness and a sort of wonder at
herself because she had really seen the Strange
Thing.

" Poor little Alfie," the executive child said.
" I'm very sorry for him, but he's better off."
The general opinion expressed was that every-
body was " sorry " for him. It would have been
unfeeling not to be sorry. There was also the
greatest possible stress laid on the fact that he
had gone to Heaven, and these sentiments were
regarded as so incontrovertibly proper that it
would have occurred to no one to find their con-
nection incompatible. Curious as it may seem, I
do not remember that the Small Person herself
did. An unquestioning acceptance of all axioms
was the feature of the period, and she was so full
of the mystery of the Strange Thing itself that
she could contemplate nothing less, though she
knew that she gained nothing by contemplating
that.

The Strange Thing 169

But though she had seen it and so had the

others, though they had looked down at its rigid-
ity, and touched its coldness with their warm
hands, though it had come into their very midst
-to Alfie Burns, who was nobody particular, and
who had played and clone his sums wrong just
like the rest of them — they knew it could not
come to any of themselves ; they did not say so,
of course, but they were quite secure in it, and
were not afraid at all.

For the Small Person, perhaps, it was well that
it was not very long before it came again. I do
not know how long. But the second time it
wore another face, and was touching but not
grewsome. And it was better to see that it might
be so, than to remember always the grimness of
the ugly, dreary room — better for anyone, far,
far better for a child with a vivid mind.

In the school there was a department for
younger children, quite little ones, who learned
their alphabet and played kindergarten games.
They had a room of their own and a teacher of
their own. There were some attractive mites
among1 them, and " the older ones," as the others

called themselves with a feeling of great matu-
rity, had favorites and pets.

There was a tiny one who was the pet of all-
such a pretty pet and such a laughing one ! She
was three years old and had golden-brown eyes

170 The One I Knew the Best of All

and little nut-brown curls on her small round
head. She was a merry thing, full of dimples,
and her brown-gold eyes were large and love-
compelling, and had long curling lashes. The
child pet of a school full of girls is a much loved
thing. This one was adored. Her lovers never
tired of praising her prettiness, her quaint little
movements, her eyelashes, her curls and eyes.
She was a little lovely one, and her tiny name
was Selina.

" Look at her ! ' everyone would exclaim when
a Kindergarten game was being played. " Oh, see
how pretty she is when she puts her teenty elbow
on her knee and leans her cheek on her hand to
show how the laborer rests. She keeps opening
her eyes and laughing. She can't keep them
shut."

This very game was played one Friday after-
noon, and she was at her very prettiest and
quaintest. Earlier in the day, it was remem-
bered afterward, she had been a little dull and
had not seemed quite herself, but in the after-
noon she had brilliant rose-colored cheeks, and
her merry eyes were like stars.

" Isn't she a sweetie ? ' said the girls. " Isn't
she a little rogue? Look at her peeping under
her eyelashes."

When the Small Person came to school on
Monday morning the door was opened for her

The Strange Thing 171

by one of the elder girls of the family. She had
a curious shocked look in her eyes.

u Has anyone told you ? ' she exclaimed.
" Have you heard about it?'

" Heard what ? ' the Small Person faltered,
startled by her expression.

" Little Selina is dead ! Pretty little Selina ! "

And so the Strange Thing came again !

This time the difficulty was to believe it — to feel
that it could be true.

" Little Selina ! ' the Small Person gasped.
" She — she cant be ! Who told you ? On Fri-
day she was playing the Haymaker game and she
kept peeping — she could not keep her eyes shut
— and we laughed so ! Selina ! '

" It's quite true," was the answer. " She was
ill then, though she had such red cheeks. Janey
said she hadn't seemed bright in the morning.
They say she hadn't been quite herself for a day
or so. She died at six this morning, and they
sent word by a servant. She was crying, poor
girl ! "

What a Strange Thing it was !

In the school-room the children looked at each
other amazed. They were amazed — that was it.
Each new comer uttered the same exclamation,
" Selina? " and then " Selina ! ' As if it were too
incredible. They kept telling each other how
merry she had been when she played the Hay-

172 The One I Knezv the Best of All

maker game, how rosy her cheeks had looked,
how roguishly she had laughed. They kept
repeating that she was such a pretty little thing
and everybody loved her. And somehow there
was a tendency even in the common ones to
look bewildered and thoughtful, and exclaim, in
a puzzled, questioning undertone, " Selina ? Se-
tt H a ! "

The Small Person found she was saying it to
herself all through the day. It had seemed
extraordinary that Alfie should be taken away,
even though they had all known about the heart
disease. It had been extraordinary because the
Strange Thing seemed to have nothing to do
with such people as themselves — to be only pos-
sible to people somehow quite remote and unlike
them. But there seemed a reason why Selina
should not be taken, the reason of herself, her
pretty, buoyant, dimpling, vivid self. What had
the awful thing to do with that ! It was unnat-
ural.

" Selina ? Selina ! "

I think it was the velvet-eyed little Best Friend
and her younger sister who went with the Small
Person to the child's home, to see her, as they
had seen Alfie. It was the first time they had
ever been to the house. The children saw very
little of each other away from the school-room,
and Selina only appeared on the small horizon

The Strange Thing 173

when her nurse brought her to the front door
and left her to pursue her tiny studies.

Of this house, also, the Small Person never
remembered anything- afterward but one room,
which has remained a picture hung in the gallery
of life.

It was not a large room. It was a nursery bed-
room, perhaps, though there was no bed in it,
only a little cot standing in the middle of it, and
prettily draped with white.

Everything in the room was white, covered
with pure white, hung with white, adorned with
white flowers — mostly white rosebuds — very ten-
der little ones. It seemed like a little chapel of
snow, where one felt one must breathe softly.

And under the snowy draperies of the small cot,
among rosebuds which seemed to kiss it with their
petals, there was another little white thing lying.

Selina ? Sclina !

Ah, little love ! how pretty and innocent and
still the Strange Thing had left her. It could
not have hurt her. She was not changed, only
that she was somehow lovelier. There were
rosebuds in her hands, and on her pillow ; her
eyelashes looked very long as they lay upon her
cheek, and in a still, strange little way she was
smiling. In the white room, among the white
flowers, looking down at her fair child-sleep
through tears, one was not the least afraid.

174 The One I Knew the Best of All

The Small Person was vaguely glad of some-
thing, and somehow she knew that she was not
" sorry for her." She looked, and looked, and

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looked again, with tenderly brooding eyes. She
did not want to go away. If the Strange Thing
only left one a soft, white creature in a white
room, among flowers, and smiling like that, at
what it had showed one, it was not so awful.

The Strange Tiling 175

What a pretty, pretty smile — as if she was keep-
ing a little secret to herself.

" May we kiss her?' the Small Person asked,
in a low voice, timidly.

"Yes, dear," was the answer.

And she bent over and kissed her round cheek
where the dimples used to play. And the cold-
ness was only the soft coldness of a flower.

And afterward they went away, talking to-
gether in low, tender, child whispers. And they
told each other again what a pretty little thing
she had been, and that everybody had loved her.
And the Small Person remembered how in the
game she had made everybody laugh, because
she could not keep still, and could not keep her
eyes closed. But now — now, she was quite still,
and she could keep her pretty eyes shut.

And this had been done by the Strange Thing.

CHAPTER XL

'•'•Mamma' —and the First One

THE chief tone of her world was given to it by
the gentle little lady who was her mother — the
most kind and simple English lady — of a type the
most ingenuous and mild. What the Small Per-
son felt most clearly was that " Mamma" was so
entirely and sweetly this gentle and kindly lady.
Of course it had not been necessary to formulate
this, even in thought, but it was an existent fact
which made life pleasant. One could not have
borne existence — even as a Small Person — if one's
" Mamma "had not been a lady. There were
Mammas who were not quite so nice — who wore
more ribbons in their caps and who could be seen
at a greater distance, and who had not such soft
voices, and such almost timidly kind smiles and
words for everyone. The Small Person was al-
ways thankful after interviews with such Mammas
that her own was the one who belonged to her,
and to whom she belonged.

It was so interesting to hear of the days when
she had been a little girl also.

" When I was a little girl and we lived at Patri-

"Mamma" — and the First One 177

croft- was the slender link which formed a
chain of many dear little stories of quite another
world.

She had not been Romantic. The Small Person
had a vague feeling that she herself might have
been the subject of memoirs of a sweet and not
awe-inspiring kind. " Mamma " could never have
been denunciatory. She seemed a little like Ame-
lia Sedley, but not so given to weeping and not so
silly. There were two little water-color pictures,
which hung in the drawing-room. They were
supposed to represent, ideally, Amy Robsart and
Jeanie Deans. They had sweet pink faces and
brown ringlets, and large, gentle blue eyes. They
were very much alike, and the Small Person was
very fond of them because Mamma had one day
said : " Poor Papa bought them before we were
married because he thought they were like me.
1 used to wear my hair like the picture of Jeanie
Deans."

To the Small Person this surrounded them with
a halo. The vision of " Poor Papa " overcome by
youthful ardor before he was married to Mamma,
and tenderly buying these two little pictures be-
cause they were like her, and had ringlets, like
hers, was simply delightful to her. How could
she help loving them ?

Was Mamma clever ? No, I think not. The
Small Person never asked herself the question.

178 The One I Knew the Best of All

That would have been most sacrilegious unlov-
ingness. And why should one have thought of
asking: more of her than that she should be

" Mamma." One would not ask one's self if an
Angel were clever. And, also, one did not think

of wondering
how many
years she had
lived. She
was just the
age of a mam-
ma. Only as
long as she
lived her
mind was like
that of an in-
nocent, serious,
young girl --with
a sort of maidenly

matronliness. Not be-

ing at all given to elo-
quence or continuous con-
versation of any sort, it was
a wonderful thing that her
mere existence near one meant so much — that it
soothed headaches, and made sore-throats bear-
able ; that it smoothed stormy nursery seas, and
removed the rankling sting of wrong and injus-
tice. One could have confronted any trial, sup-

-and the First One 179

ported by the presence of this little, gentle, very
ingenuous and unworldly Mamma.

She was a sweetly feminine thing, and her liter-
ature had been as feminine as herself. The Small
Person found out about that. She had read " im-
proving " works when she was a young lady. She
had a great respect for Miss Martineau and Mrs.
Ellis and her " Daughters of England." She had
read poems in Keepsakes, and knew all the beau-
ties of Dr. Watts. Mrs. Barbauld she revered,
and a certain book called " Anna Lee, the Maiden,
Wife, and Mother," she admired most sweetly.

" But you ought not to read tales so much,"
she used to say, with a gently heroic sense of ma-
ternal duty, to the Small Person. " You ought
to read something Improving."

" What is Improving, Mamma ? ' the Small
Person would reply.

Gentle little lady Mamma! I am afraid she was
vague — though the Small Person did not realize
that it was vagueness she always observed in her
blue eye when she asked this question. The an-
swer was always the same :

" Oh ! — history and things, love. History is al-
ways improving."

The Small Person used to wonder why His-
tory particularly. It was never suggested that
grammar, geography, and arithmetic were stimu-
lating to the mind — but history always. And she

180 The One I Knew the Best of All

knew all " Pinnock's England ' and " Pinnock's
Rome ' and somebody else's " Greece." Could
there have been in Mamma herself a lurking
fondness for the Story which was not " improv-
ing " ? There were three or four mentioned at
different periods which she seemed to remember
interesting details of with remarkable clearness.
"The Scottish Chiefs," "The Children of the
Abbey," u Fatherless Fanny," " The Castle of
Otranto," and "The Mysteries of Udolpho."
Certain incidents in them being inadvertently
described to the Small Person so inflamed her
imagination that the most burning desire of her
life was to be the happy possessor of these rich
treasures. It was years before she came upon
them, one by one, and then somehow their glory
had departed. The mysterious secreted relative
wandering about the cloister's ruins had lost her
sorrowful eerie charm, the ghastly, apparently
murdered victim, concealed by the heavy curtain,
had no impressiveness, and it was not really a
shock when he turned out to be only wax. Emily
-the beautiful persecuted Emily in " Udolpho '
-was actually tedious in her persistent habit of
" giving vent to her feelings in the following
lines." But when Mamma told bits of them with
a certain timidity engendered by their romantic
lack of the element of " improvement," what
thrillingly suggestive things they were !

" Mamma' -and the First One 181

What a beautiful thing this pure and gentle
heart was — quite as simple as the heart of a child,
and filled with sweetest, lenient kindness to all
things ! What a beautiful thing for a little child
to grow up in the mild sunshine of ! What brill-
iant strength could have had such power — if it
had not had its sweetness too ? How did one
learn from it that to be unkindly and selfish was
not only base but somehow vulgar too — and that
the people who were not born in the " back
streets ' naturally avoided these things as they
avoided dropping their h's and speaking the dia-
lect?

Nobody ever said " Noblesse oblige," nobody
ever said anything about " Noblesse " at all, and
yet one knew that in certain quiet, unpretentious
houses the boys and girls must be " ladies and
gentlemen," and to be so one must feel inadmissi-
ble some faults it was by no means difficult to fall
into. There is, after all, a certain quaint dignity
in the fixed qualities understood by some English
minds in the words " lady ' and " gentleman."
The words themselves have been vulgarized, and
cheapened, and covered with odd gildings and
varnish, and have been made to mean so many
objectionable things, that it has seemed better
taste to let them drop out of fashion — but once
their meaning in simple, gentle minds was some-
thing very upright and fine. They were used in

1 82 The One I Knew the Best of All

this sense in the clays of the Small Person — at
least she believed them to mean nothing less.

In searching the past there is no memory of
any lecture delivered by " Mamma " on the sub-
ject of good morals, good manners, and good
taste. Anything from " Mamma ' in the nature
of a harangue would have seemed incongruous.
Perhaps it was because through all the years she
never was unkind or ungenerous, because she was
good to everything — even to disreputable and ob-
jectionable stray cats and lost dogs brought in-
with bursts of enthusiasm — for refuge ; because
she never uttered a vulgarly sharp or spiteful,
envious word, or harbored an uncharitable
thought — perhaps it was because of these things
that one grew up knowing that her unspoken
creed would be :

" Be kind, my dear. Try not to be thoughtless
of other people. Be very respectful to people
who are old, and be polite to servants and good
to people who are poor. Never be rude or vul-
gar. Remember to be always a little lad}^."

It was all so simple and so quite within the
bounds of what one could do. And, all summed
up and weighed, the key-note of it was but one
thing: " Be kind, my dear — be kind."

There was an innocent, all-embracing prayer,
which the entire Nursery said unfailingly ever}7
night and morning, through all its childhood-

"Mamma* -and the First One 183

some of them, perhaps, far beyond childhood, be-
cause of the tender homely memories it brought
back. One of them, at least, in after years, when
the world had grown to wider boundaries and
faith was a less easy thing, found a strange, sad
pleasure in saying it because its meaning was so
full of trustingness, and so sweet.

Surely it was " Mamma ' who was responsible
for it — " Mamma'" who had a faith so perfect and
simple, and who, in asking for good, could have
left out in her praying nothing, however poor
and small.

As she grew to riper years the Small Person
often pondered on it and found it touching, in its
all-embracingness.

It began with the Lord's Prayer — the first
words of this being said devoutly as, " Our
Father, 'chart in Heaven," and the more sloivly one
said it all, the more devout one was supposed to
be. The child who " gabbled ' her prayers was
" a wicked thing." It was very awful, when one
was tired or preoccupied, to find out that one was
" gabbling." Discovering this, one went back and
began again, with exceeding deliberation.

But it was the little prayer which came after
this which so took in all the world — leaving out
none — in its blessing :

" God bless Papa and Mamma," it began, lov-
ingly, " and Grandpapas and Grandmammas '

184 The One I Knew the Best of All

though when the Small Person first remembered
it the Grandpapas were gone, and one could only
say, " and Grandmammas," because the Grand-
papas had " gone to Heaven," and so needed no
praying for, because in Heaven everybody was
happy and God took care of them without being
asked every night and morning by the wearers of
the little white night-gowns, by the little white
beds, in the Nursery. " God bless my Brothers
and Sisters," it went on, lovingly again, " and
my Uncles and Aunts and Cousins." And then,
that none might escape and be forgotten, " Pray
God bless all my Relations and Friends," and
then, in an outburst of sympathy, " Pray God,
bless Everybody." And modestly, at the end-
and with the feeling that it was really a great
deal to ask — " And make Me a Good Child — for
Jesus Christ's Sake. Amen."

One felt, with all one's little heart, that this
could be only done " For Jesus Christ's Sake '
because one knew how far one was removed from
the little girl who died of scarlet fever in the
Memoirs.

And then one finished with three dear little
verses which seemed to provide for all in one's
child-life — and which remembered one's friends
again, and took one even to the gates of Paradise.

In Nursery parlance it was always spoken of as
" Jesus tender."

"Mamma* -and the First One 185

" Did you say your 'Jesus tender ' ? " was some-
times sternly demanded by one little white Night-
gown of another. " You were such a little bit of

a time kneeling down, if you said it you must
have gabbled."
It was this :

" Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me,
Bless Thy little lamb to-night ;
Through the darkness be Thou near me,
Keep me safe till morning light."

That seemed to make everything so safe when
the gas was turned down.

" Through the Darkness be Thou near me " —

the strange, black Dark, when anything might
come out of corners, or from under the bed, or
down the chimney, and if one heard a sound, one
could only huddle one's head under the clothes
and lie listening with beating heart. But if
" Jesus tender ' was there, and would keep one
safe till morning light, one need not be really
afraid of anything. And then came the little
thankful part :

" Through this day Thy hand hath led me,

And I thank Thee for Thy care.
Thou hast warmed and clothed and fed me,
Listen to my evening prayer."

1 86 The One I Knew the Best of All

And then the last, where the poor little sins were
asked mercy for, and the friends were embraced
again, and one was left happy — taken care of-
dwelling in Paradise with the Tender one :

" Let my sins be all forgiven,

Bless the friends I love so well,
Take me, when I die, to Heaven,
Happy there with Thee to dwell.
For Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."

It was very sweet and very trusting — full of be-
lief, and full of love and kind faith in and for all
the world. And whatever of faith might fade in
the glare of maturity, which made all things too
real or too vague, to say simply every night and
morning through a whole childhood, words as
confiding and as kind must be a good begin-
ning for an innocent life — for any life, however
spent.

The First One — a development of that notable
seventh year — was written one Sunday evening
in Summer, when it was clear twilight, and the
church bells were ringing. She sat at the Sitting
Room Table which for the time was merely a
table made to rest things upon. She was fond of
the act of scribbling, and frequently had filled
pages in blank books with lines of angular let-
ter m's joined together. The doing it gave her
the feeling of writing with rapidity and ease

"Mamma' -and the First One 187

as older people did. There was something in
the free movement of the flying pen which
she liked extremely. The long summer twilight
of these Sunday evenings was always emotion-
ally impressive to her. She did not know why,
but that they seemed so quiet, and the house
was so still, and one did not play with the Doll
or run about. She had never been forbidden
secular amusement, or talked to rigidly, but some-
how there were certain things one felt it was not
exactly proper to do on Sunday.

Sunday, in fact, was rather a nice day. After
breakfast one was dressed with such care for
church. The Small Person and her two sisters,
exceedingly fresh as to frocks and hats, and ex-
ceedingly glossy as to curls, walked to church
Avith Mamma and the Governess and the two
brothers, whose Eton collars presented their most
unimpeachable spotlessness.

The sermon was frequently rather long, but
one did one's best by it in the way of endeavor-
ing to understand what it was about. The Small
Person was dissatisfied with her character be-
cause she was conscious that her mind frequently
wandered, and that she found herself imagining
agreeable scenes of a fictitious nature. She also
found that when she checked these sinful mun-
dane fancyings and forced herself to strictly fol-
low the Reverend James Jones, she was guilty

1 88 The One I Knew the Best of All

of impatient criticism, entirely unbecoming a lit-
tle girl. The literary ideal of a perfect little girl
in those clays — a spotless little girl, who, being
snatched away in her youth by scarlet fever,
would create quite a commotion in Heaven by
the rectitude of her conduct — was the painful
young person who had memoirs written about
her, relating the details of her sufferings and the
Example she had been to every one about her-
particularly to all other children who were not of
the moral elite as it were. The Small Person had
extremely high standards. There was nothing she
would have been so thankful for as to find that
she might attain being an Example — and suitable
for memoirs — but she had an humble, sorrowing
consciousness that such aspirations were in vain.
This was evident on the face of it. The little
girls in memoirs could not have been guilty oi
the vileness of " not listening to the sermon."
They heard every word of it, and preached it
over again to their companions on the way home,
by way of inspiring them to religious enthu-
siasm. They never thought of anything but the
preacher while they were in church, and they
never read anything but the Bible, and were in
the kindly habit of repeating chapters of it aloud
to people left alone with them. They always
knew a text to say when anyone did anything
wrong, and it always converted the erring one

Mamma' -and the First One 189

upon the spot. " Thou shalt not steal," they said
solemnly, when a boy was going to steal an ap-
ple, and he never thought of such a thing again.
" Thou, God, seest me," they said when Tommy
had taken a lump of sugar, and was revelling in
the crime, and he immediately put it back into
the bowl — probably very much the worse for wear
-but he never looked at the sugar-bowl again so
long as he lived.

The Small Person felt she could not accom-
plish these things — that there was a fatal earthly
flaw in her nature. Perhaps it was because she
was Romantic, and no memoir had ever been
written about a little girl who was Romantic.
Whether it preserved them against scarlet fever
or asrainst the memoir she did not ask. But

sometimes she had a sad lurking fear that if a
girl out of a memoir had heard her dramatic
performances with the Doll she would have said
to her :

" That is not a bark. It is only an Arm Chair.
You are not playing on a lute made of silver.
You are only tooting on a tin whistle Avhich cost
a penny. You are not a gentleman. You are
a little girl. And you are saying what is not
true. These are all lies — and liars go to Hell."

It made her feel inclined to burst into tears
when she thought of it — so she thought of it as
little as possible. This may have indicated a

The One I Knew the Best of All

shifty irresponsibility of nature or a philosophic
discretion. She could not live without the Doll.
She felt it sad that she was not made to be an Ex-
ample, but she tried to be as unobjectionable as
was compatible with her inferiority and lack of
fine qualities.

And, somehow, she liked Sunday. Having
had another Mamma she might have disliked it
greatly, but as it existed in her life, it had rather
the air of a kind of peaceful festival. She her-
self was in those days too unconscious to realize
that it combined with its spiritual calm certain
mild earthly pleasures which made an excellent
foundation for its charm. One did not go to
school ; there were no lessons to learn ; the chaos
of the Nursery was reduced to order ; the whole
house looked nice and quiet ; one was so special-
ly spotless in one's best frock ; there was always
such a nice pudding for dinner (never rice, or
bread-pudding, but something with an aspect
of novelty). For a little while after dinner one
remained in the drawing-room, and sometimes
Mamma — who belonged to the generation when
" the figure ' was not a matter treated lightly,
would surest that the Small Person and her two

o o

sisters should lie quite flat upon their backs, upon

the hearth-rug, "for fifteen minutes by the clock."

" It is very good for your backs, my dears,"

she would say. " It makes them straight. It is

" Mamma' -and the First- One 191

very important that a young lady should hold
herself well. When we were girls — your aunt
Emma and I — back-boards were used."

The Small Person quite delighted in this cere-
mony. It was so nice to stretch one's plump
body on the soft rug — with the sense of its being
rather a joke— and hear about the time when
people used back-boards. It appeared that there
had been school-mistresses — genteel, extremely
correct ladies who kept boarding-schools — who
had been most rigorous in insisting on the use
of the back-board by their pupils. There were
anecdotes of girls who would " poke their chins
forward," and so were constrained to wear a
species of collar. There was one collar indeed,
celebrated for certain sharp-pointed things under
the chin, which briskly reminded the young
lady when she " poked." The knowledge that
scholastic and maternal method had improved
since those days, and that one would never be
called upon to use back-boards or instruments
suggestive of the Inquisition, was agreeable, and
added charm to lying on the rug and turning
one's eyes to the ormolu clock on the mantel
every now and then, to see if the three five min-
utes were gone.

After that one went for a decorous saunter
round the Square, where one always encountered
the Best Friend and her sisters, and perhaps

1 92 The One I Knew the Best of All

other little girls, all in best frocks and best hats,
and inclined to agreeable conversation.

About four one returned to the drawing-room,
and the event of the day took place. Everyone
took a chair, and being given an orange, disposed
of it at leisure and with great but joyful decorum,
while Mamma or the Governess read aloud,

" Where did we leave off last Sunday ? ' the
reader would ask, turning over the leaves.

The Small Person always knew. She revelled
in these Sunday afternoons. During the rapture
of their passing she heard " Ministering Chil-
dren," " The Channings," " Mrs. Halliburton's
Troubles," " Letters from Palmyra," and " Letters
from Rome," an enthralling book called " Naomi,"
which depicted dramatically the siege of Jerusa-
lem, and divers other " Sunday books."

Yes, Sunday was a day quite set apart, and was
really very pleasant to think of. A far more brill-
iant woman than " Mamma" might have made it
infinitely less an agreeable and bright memory.
Hers was the brilliance of a sweet and tender
heart which loved too kindly to give one dreary
hour.

None of the younger ones went to church in
the evening.

" I am afraid you might be sleepy," said
Mamma, which was an instance of most discreet
forethought.

11 Mamma' -and the First One 193

So not going to church, the Small Person had
her evening hours in the quiet house, and liked
them greatly.

The form and merits of the First One have
not remained a memory, but the emotion which
created it is a memory very distinct indeed. As
for the creation itself, it cannot have been of any
consequence but that it was the First One.

I see the Sitting Room with its look of Sunday
neatness, the Green Arm Chair wearing a decor-
ous air of never having braved the stormy billows,
the table with its cloth quite straight upon it,
and the Small Person sitting by it with pen and
ink and an old exercise-book before her, the win-
dow open behind her.

The pen and ink and book were to scribble
with, because it amused her to scribble. But all
was so quiet around her, and the sound of the
church-bells coming through the open windows
was such a peaceful thing, that she sat leaning on
the table, her cheek on her hand, listening to it.
What is there that is so full of emotional sugges-
tion in the sound of bells ringing in the summer
twilight ? The Small Person did not know at all.
But she felt very still and happy, and as if she
wanted to say or do something new, which would
somehow be an expression of feeling and good-
ness, and — and — she did not know at all what else.

She turned her face over her shoulder, to look
13

194 The One I Knew tJie Best of All

at the sky, which showed over the tops of the
houses in the Back Street. It wras very beautiful
that evening — very blue, and dappled with filmy
white clouds. It had a Sunday evening look.

After looking at it, she turned slowly to the
exercise-book again — not with any particular in-
tention, but reminded by the pen in her hand
of the pleasantness of scribbling. A delightful,
queer, and tremendously bold idea came to her.
It was so daring that she smiled a little.

" I wonder if I could write — a piece of poetry,"
she said. " I believe — I'll try."

No one need ever know that she had attempt-
ed anything so audacious, and she could have the
fun of trying. There was no one in the room
but the Green Arm Chair, and it could not be-
tray her — besides the fact that it would not if
it could. It was such a nice old thing. It had a
way at times of seeming to have forgotten the
adventures of its wild and rather rackety past,
and of seeming to exist only to hold out its arms
benignly to receive Grandmammas. As to Pi-
rates on the Hiffh Seas, it seemed never to have

even heard of one.

A piece of poetry was a thing with short lines,
and at the end of them were words which sound-
ed alike — which rhymed.

" Down on a green and shady bed
A modest violet grew,

"Mamma' -and the First One 195

Its stalk was bent, it hung its head
As if to hide from view."

" ' Charge, Chester, charge ! on, Stanley, on ! '
Were the last words of Marmion."

" Believe me, if all those endearing young charms

Which I gaze on so fondly to-day
Were to fleet by to-morrow and fade in these arms
Like fairy dreams gone to decay."

" How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour ;
It gathers honey all the day,
From every opening flower."

These were pieces of poetry, and they gave one
something to build on. " Bed, Head, Led, Shed
-Charms, Arms, Farms, Carms." No, Carms
was not a word. Oh, " Calms ! ' And Calms
was a real word. That seemed to open up vistas.
It became quite exciting - - like a sort of game.
There were words spelled differently from each
other, it seemed, which would rhyme. And the
church-bells went on ringing with that soft sound
which seemed to make one think things.

What should the piece of poetry be about?
How pretty that ringing was ! Oh, suppose one
tried to write a piece of poetry about the bells !
Bells, Shells, Tells, Sells — Ring, Sing, Fling, Wing.

And she wrote a " piece of poetry ' about the
church-bells, and of it there is no record what-
ever, but that it was the First One. How long it

196 The One I Knew the Best of All

was before she wrote another I am not at all sure.
She did not seem to rush madly on in her down-
ward career.

Time could not possibly be calculated in those
days. A month seemed to hold a Future. Any-
thing might occur in the way of rapture du ring-
six weeks' holiday. If one heard that a thing
would happen " Next Year," one could not feel
actual interest in it. " Next century ' would not
have made it much less vague.

But I think she was nine or ten years old when,
on another Sunday evening, she broke forth
again. She had read a great deal of the " Secre-
taire ' by that time, and had found that in Maga-
zines published for grown-up people there were
many things to read. She had discovered that
Punch was a source of delight, and a person of
the name of Charles Dickens had attracted her
attention. Perhaps the fact that she had made
his acquaintance, and that she had discovered
Punch had given a new flavor to her romanticisms.
But to the last the adventures of the Doll were
never clouded in their seriousness by any sense
of humor. Her charm would have been lost if
one could have treated her lightly, or made fun
of her. She was Reality.

The Sunday evening when she wrote her next
piece of poetry was a dark and stormy one. It
was a winter evening. The rain was falling and

"Mamma' -and the First One 197

the wind howling outside. Her sisters were in
bed, everyone else but one servant at church, and
she was sitting in the drawing-room.

She had pen and ink before her again, without
any particular reason, except that she wanted
something to do, and again it was the sounds out-
side which gave her her impetus. There were no
church-bells. They had stopped ringing long
before, and the wintry storm had begun after
everyone must have been safely in church. It
was the sound of the wind which moved her this
time. It sounded all the more weird, as it rushed
wailing round the houses, because she was quite
alone. Sometimes it seemed to exhaust itself in
sounds like mournful cries heard very far off.
That particular sound had always affected her
very much. When she had been a little child
lying awake in the Nursery bedroom she had
been heart-broken by a fancy of a baby lost in the
darkness of the night and storm, and wandering
alone, crying, crying for someone to find it.

This Sunday night it made her melancholy.
Even the cheerful sounds of the bright fire of
blazing coal were not enough to overpower the
feeling. And she felt so alone that she began to
wish " Mamma" and the Governess would come
home from church, and wondered how they
would get through the rain. It seemed lonely
when the wind sounded like that.

198 77/6' One I Knew t/ie Best of All

And suddenly, as a means of distracting her-
self, she began to write another " piece of poetry."

It began by being a very harrowing thing.
The immortal whole was never seen by her after
that night, but the flavor of the first verse was so
fine that it would not be easy to forget it. The
" Secretaire " had given her an acquaintance with
more than one darkling poem, recording and im-
mortalizing the sentiments of lofty-minded per-
sons who were the victims of accursed fate and
who in the depths of their woe were capable of
devoting many verses to describing their exalted
scorn of things in general- -particularly suns
which would unfeelingly persist in shining, stars
that continued heartlessly to remain bright, and
skies whose inconsiderate blueness could not be
too scathingly condemned. And the very lofti-
ness of their mental altitude was the cause of
their being isolated from the " hollow world."
They were always " alone." Alone. That was a
good idea. The piece of poetry should be called
"Alone." And the wind should be heard in it.
How it wailed at that particular moment. And
this was the soul-stirring result :

ALONE.

Alone — alone ! The wind shrieks " Alone ! "

And mocks my lonely sorrow,
" Alone — alone ! " the trees seem to moan,

" For thee there's no bright to-morrow."

"Mamma' -and the First One 199

There were no trees — but that was immaterial.
And there was no sorrow — but that also was of
nc consequence whatever. There was, however,
a touch of unconscious realism in the suggestion
of the to-morrow not wearing a cheerful aspect.
The nex\t day was Monday, and it would be
necessary to go to school again, which was a
prospect never holding forth inducements of a
glittering nature. She was not warmly attached
to school.

But the first verse really impressed her. Up
to that time, I remember, she had never been im-
pressed by anything she had done. The First
One had not impressed her at all. She had only
found it very absorbing to write it. But the tone
of this struck her. It was the tone. It seemed so
elevated — so grown-up — so like something out of
the " Secretaire." It suggested Lord Byron. It
seemed to begin a little like some of those things
he had written about ladies — intimating that if he
was not very careful indeed they would fall hope-
lessly in love with him, which might lead to most
disastrous results, but that, being the noble creat-
ure he was, he would be careful and "spare'
tb^m — which the Small Person always thought
extremely nice of him, and so beautiful when ex-
pressed in poetry. But she had not come to the
lady in her poetry. In fact, she had not thought
of her at all, which was quite remiss, as she had

2OO The One I Knew the Best of All
imagined the sufferer whom the wind shrieked at

to be a gentleman. Perhaps such had been the
feelingfs of Ouentinravenswoodmaltravers when

O fZt

the eldest Miss Grantham's papa had disapproved
of him. Gentlemen in that situation, in the
" Secretaire," always felt that trees and things
were taunting them. But it was cheering to re-
flect that he had had a <4 bright to-morrow " on the
occasion when he drove home from church with
the eldest Miss Grantham's head on his shoulder.

Oh, it really was quite a beautiful piece of
poetry — at least the beginning of it was. And she
sat and gazed at it respectfully.

I have wondered since then if one has not rea-
son to congratulate her on the thing which hap-
pened next, and on the result of it. Perhaps
Punch and the witticisms in the grown-up maga-
zines, and perhaps the tone of thought of the gen-
tleman of the name of Dickens were her salva-
tion. If it had been possible for her to Avrite a
second verse as harrowing as the first and to
complete her piece of poetry with the same senti-
ments carried to the bitter end, this being re-
peated through her ripening years and giving
tone to them, it seems not impossible that the
effect upon her cha.racter might have been a little
lowering, or at least not of the most bracing nat-
ure.

But this was what happened. Though a wildly

" Mamma' -and the First One 201

romantic, she was a healthy and cheerful-minded
Small Person, and intense as was her reverence
for this first verse she found she could not possibly
write another. She tried and tried in vain. She
frowned gloomily, and listened to the wind howl-
ing. She thought of the " Corsair," and the ladies
Lord Byron had " spared." She strove to depict
to herself the agonies of Quentinravenswoodmal-
travers before Miss Grantham's papa relented.
But it was no use. She became more and more
cheerful, and at last found herself giving it up
with something like a giggle, because it suddenly
struck her as rather funny that she was sitting
there trying so hard to " think of something sor-
rowful."

And it occurred to her that she would try to
make it into something amusing.

It is quite possible that unconscious cerebra-
tion connected with some humorous poems in
Punch, or the grown-up magazines, guided her.
She wrote the rest of it — and there were a num-
ber of verses — quite rapidly, and with great en-
joyment. She laughed a great deal as she was
doing it. It was quite a primitive and aged idea
she used, but it seemed intensely amusing to her.
The gentleman who had begun by being mocked
and shrieked at by the winds and trees developed
into an unmarried gentleman whose bachelor-
hood exposed him to many domestic vicissitudes

202 The One I Knew the Best of All

and un-
pleasant-
nesses. He
seemed a very
hapless gentle-
man, indeed, and his
situation was such that
one did not wonder that

the winds in the first verse " seemed to moan" at
him, even though they intended it for another
gentleman.

She finished the last verse in a burst of ecstatic

"Mamma' -and the First One 203

low giggling. When it was all done she did not
think of respecting it or admiring it at all ; it did
not impress her, it simply made her laugh.

I wonder if it can have really been at all actu-
ally funny. At that age one laughs so easily. I
know nothing about the verses but that there was
an interesting incident connected with them, and
that they made someone else laugh.

Just as she finished them " Mamma ' came
home from church, and hearing the front door-
bell ring she took her papers off the table. It
would not have done to let " the boys " know she
had been trying to write poetry. They would
have made her life a burden to her.

But " Mamma " was different. Mamma always
liked to be told about things, and perhaps the
verses would make her laugh, too. It was always
nice to make her laugh.

So she took the exercise-book under her arm,
and wrent upstairs with it, still flushed and elated
by the excitement of composition.

Mamma was standing before the dressing-table
taking off her nice little black bonnet. She never
wore anything but black after " Poor Papa " died,
though he died young.

She turned, smiling, as the Small Person ap-
proached with the exercise-book under her arm.

" Well, my dear," she said. " What have you
got there ? '

204 The One I Knew the Best of All

" I've got a piece of poetry," said the Small
Person. " I want to read it to you and see if you
don't think it's funny."

She forgot to say anything about having writ-
ten it herself. She was so full of it and so ea^er

to try it on Mamma that it seemed unnecessary
to say it was her own. Just warm from the writ-
ing of it, she took it for granted that it was all
understood.

She looked so elated and laughing that Mam-
ma laughed too.

" What is it ? " she asked.

" Let me read it to you," said the Small Per-
son. And she began. " It's called * Alone/ ' she
said.

She began with the melancholy verse and did
her best by it. Mamma looked a little mysti-
fied at first, but when the second verse began
she smiled ; at the third she laughed her pret-
ty laugh ; at the fourth she exclaimed " How
funny!' at the fifth and sixth she laughed more
and more, and by the time all the others were
finished she was laughing quite uncontrollably.
The Small Person was flushed with delight and
was laughing too.

" Do you think it's funny ? ' she asked.

" Funny ! ' exclaimed Mamma. " Oh, it is very
funny ! Where did you find it ? Did you copy
it out of one of the periodicals?'

" Mamma ' -and the First One 205

Then the Small Person realized that Mamma
did not know who had done it, and she felt rather
shy.

" Where did you get it ? " repeated Mamma.

The Small Person suddenly realized that there
was an unexpected awkwardness in the situation.
It was as if she had to confess she had been se-
creting something.

She became quite red, and answered almost
apologetically, looking rather sheepishly at Mam-
ma.

" I — didn't get it from anywhere." She hesi-
tated. " I thought you knew. I — I wrote it my-
self." .

Mamma's face changed. She almost dropped
her bonnet on the floor, she was so astonished.

" You ! " she exclaimed, looking almost as if she
was a little frightened at such an astounding de-
velopment. " You wrote it, my dear ? Are you
in earnest ? Why, it seems impossible ! '

" But 1 did, Mamma," said the Small Person,
beaming with delight at success so unexpected
and intoxicating. " I really did. My own self.
I was sitting in the drawing-room by myself.
And I wanted to do something because it was so
lonely — and the wind made such a noise. And I
began to write — and I made it mournful at first.
And then I couldn't go on with it, so I thought
I'd make it funny. See, here it is in the exercise-

206 The One I Knew the Best of All

book — with all the mistakes in it. You know you
always keep making mistakes when you write
poetry."

Dear Mamma had never written poetry. It was
revealed afterward that " Poor Papa" had done
something of the sort before he was married. But
never Mamma. And the rest of the children-
Aunt Emma's children and Aunt Caroline's and
Uncle Charles's — had never shown any tendencies
of the kind. And the Square children never did
it. I think she was a little alarmed. She may

" Mamma' -and the First One 207

privately have been struck with a doubt as to its
being quite healthy. I am afraid she thought it
was enormously clever — and, in those days, one
not infrequently heard darkling stories of children
who were so clever that " it flew to the brain,"
with fatal results. And yet, whatever her startled
thoughts were, she was undisguisedly filled with
delight and almost incredulous admiration. She
glanced at the exercise-book and looked up from
it quite blushing herself with surprise and pleas-
ure.

" Well, my dear," she said, " you have taken me
by surprise, I must confess. I never thought of
such a thing. It — why, it is so clever ! '

And she put her arms about the overwhelmed
and ecstasized Small Person and kissed her. And
for some reason her eyes looked quite oddly bright,
and the Small Person, delighted though she was,
felt a queer little lump for a moment in her
throat.

This being, I suppose, because they were both
feminine things, and could not even be very much
delighted without being tempted to some quaint
emotion.

CHAPTER XII.
"Edith Somerville" -and Raw Turnips

I FIND it rather interesting to recall that, hav-
ing had the amusement of writing the poem and
the rapturous excitement of finding it was a suc-
cess with Mamma, the Small Person did not con-
cern herself further about it. It is more than
probable that it had a small career of its own
among her friends and relatives; but of that she
seems to have heard nothing but that it was read
to a mature gentleman who pronounced it " clever."
She did not inquire into the details and was given
none of them. This was discreet enough on the

part of the older people. She was not a self-con-
scious, timid child, to whom constant praise was a
necessity. She was an extremely healthy and
joyous Small Person, and took life with ease and
good cheer. She would have been disappointed
if Mamma had thought her "piece of poetry'
silly and had not laughed at all. As she had
laughed so much and had been so pleased she
had had all the triumph her nature craved, and
more might have been bad for her. To have
been led to attach any importance to the little

"Edith Somerville' 209

effusion or to regard it with respect would cer-
tainly have been harmful. It is quite possible
that this was the decision of Mamma, who proba-
bly liked her entire unconsciousness.

It was possibly, however, a piece of good fort-
une for her that her first effort had not been a
source of discouragement to her. If it had
been, it is likely that she would have clone
nothing more, and so would not have spent her
early years in unconscious training, which later
enabled her to make an honest livelihood.

As it was, though she wrote no more poetry,
she began to scribble on slates and in old ac-
count-books thrilling scenes from the dramas
acted with the Doll. It was very exciting to
write them down, and they looked very beauti-
ful when written — particularly if the slate pencil
was sharp — but the difficulty was to get a whole
scene on to a slate. They had a habit of not fit-
ting, and then it was awkward. And it hap-
pened so frequently that just at the most excit-
ing point one's pencil would reach the very last
line that could be crowded in and strike against
the frame in the middle of a scene — even in the
middle of a sentence. And it destroyed the
sentiment and the thrill so to break off in such
a manner as this :

" Sir Marmuduke turned proudly away. The

haughty blood of the Maxweltons sprang to his
14

2io The One I Knew the Best of All

check. Ethelbertii's heart, beat wildly. She
held out her snowy arms. ' Oh, Marmaduke !'
she cried. ' Oh, Marmaduke, 1 cannot bear it,'
and she burst-

You cannot get in any more when you come
to the wooden frame itself, and it was trying to
everybody — Sir Marmaduke Maxwelton included
— not to know that Ethelberta simply burst into
tears.

And it spoiled it to sponge it all out and con-
tinue on a clean slate. One wanted to read it
all together and get the whole effect at once. It
was better in old butcher's books, because there
was more room, though of course the cook
never had " done with them," until there were
only a few pages left, and even these were only
given up because they were greasy. Sometimes
one had to scribble between entries, and then
it might happen that when Ethelberta, "ap-
palled by the sight of a strong man weeping,
bent over her lover, laying her white hand
upon his broad shoulder, and said, * Marma-
duke, what has grieved you so? Speak, dear-
est, speak ! ' Sir Marmaduke turned his an-
guished eyes upon her, and cried in heart-wrung
tones: ' Ethelberta -- my darling --oh, that it
should be so Onions \d. Shoulder of Mutton

IOT."

And old copy-books were almost as bad,

I 4

Edit/i Soinerville ' 211

though one sometimes did get a few more blank
leaves. But with her knowledge of the impas-
sioned nature of the descendant of the Maxwel-
tons and his way with Ethelberta when he was
expressing his emotions freely, the Small Per-
son could not feel that " Contentment is better
than riches," " Honesty is the best policy," " A
rolling stone gathers no moss," were sentiments
likely to "burst forth from his o'er-charged
bosom as he gazed into her violet eyes and
sighed in tender tones ' -which not infrequent-
ly happened to him. Yes, it was extremely dif-
ficult to procure paper. When one's maturity
realizes how very much there is of it in the
world, and how much might be left blank with
advantage, and how much one is obliged by
social rules to cover when one would so far pre-
fer to leave it untouched, it seems rather sad
that an eager Small Person could not have
had enough when she so needed it for serious
purposes.

But she collected all she could and covered
it with vivid creations. It was necessary that
she should take precautions about secreting it
safely, however. " The boys," having in some
unexplained way discovered her tendencies, were
immensely exhilarated by the idea, and indulged
in the most brilliant witticisms at her expense.

"I say!' they would proclaim, "she's writing

212 The One I Knew the Best of All

a three-volumed novel. The heroine has golden
hair that trails on the ground. Her name's Lady
Adolphusina."

They were not ill-natured, but a girl who was
" romantic ' must expect to be made fun of.
They used to pretend to have found pieces of
her manuscript and to quote extracts from them
when there were people to hear.

It was great fun for the boys, but the frogs-
I should say the Small Person — did not enjoy
it. She was privately a sensitive and intensely
proud Small Person, and she hated it, if the
truth were told. She was childishly frank, but
desperately tenacious of certain reserves, of
which the story-writing was one. She liked it
so much, but she was secretly afraid it was a
ridiculous thing for a little girl to do. Of course
a child could not really write stories, and per-
haps it was rather silly and conceited to pretend,
even for amusement, that she was doing it. But
she never let anyone see what she wrote. She
would have perished rather. And it really hurt
nobody, however silly it was.

She used to grow hot all over when the boys
made fun of her. She «;rew hot even if no one

heard them, and if they began before strangers
she felt the scarlet rush not only to the roots of
her hair but all among them and to the nape of
her neck. She used to feel herself fly into a blaz-

"Edith Somerville' 213

ing rage, but the realization she began her first
conscious experience with at two years old — the
complete realization of the uselessness of attacking
a Fixed Fact — used to make her keep still. The
boys were a Fixed Fact. You cannot stop boys
unless you Murder them ; and though you may
feel — for one wild, rushing moment — that they
deserve it, you can't Murder your own brothers.
If you call names and stamp your feet they will
tease you more ; if you burst out crying they will
laugh and say that is always the way with girls,
so upon the whole it seems better to try not to
look in a rage and keep your fury inside the little
bodice of your frock. She was too young to have
reached the Higher Carelessness of Theosophy and
avoid feeling the rage. She was a mild creature
when left alone to the Doll and the Story, but
she was capable of furies many sizes too large for
her. Irritable she never was, murderous she had
felt on more than one occasion when she was not
suspected of it. She was a great deal too proud
to " let people see." So she always hid her scraps
of paper, and secreted herself when she was cov-
ering them.

Mamma knew and never catechized her about
them in the least, which was very perfect in her.
She doubtless knew that in a rudimentary form
they contained the charms which enriched the
pages of the Family Herald and the Young Ladies'

214 The One I Knew the Best of All

Halfpenny Journal, but she was too kind to inter-
fere with them, as they did not seem to interfere
with " Pinnock's England' or inspire the child
with self-conscious airs and graces.

My memory of them is that they were extreme-
ly like the inspirations of the Young Ladies Half-
penny. The heroines had the catalogued list of
charms which was indispensable in faz Journal type
of literature. One went over them carefully and
left nothing out. One did not say in an indefinite,
slipshod manner that Cecile was a blonde. One
entered into detail and described what she " had '
in the way of graces. " She had a mass of silken,
golden locks which fell far below her tiny waist in
a shower of luxuriant ringlets. She had a straight,
delicate nose, large, pellucid violet eyes, slender,
arched eyebrows, lashes which swept her softly
rounded, rose-tinted cheek, a mouth like Cupid's
bow, a brow of ivory on which azure veins me-
andered, pink ears like ocean shells, a throat like
alabaster, shoulders like marble, a Avaist which one
might span, soft, fair arms, snowy, tapering, dim-
pled hands, and the tiniest feet in the world. She
wore a filmy white robe, confined at her slender
waist by a girdle of pearl and gold, and her luxu-
riant golden tresses were wreathed with snow-
drops."

Heroines were not things to be passed over
as mere trivialities or e very-day affairs. Neither

" Edit/I Somerville ' 215

were heroes. Sir Marmaduke Maxwelton covered
nearly two whole slates before he was done
with, and then entire justice was not done to the
" patrician air which marked all of Maxwelton
blood."

But how entrancing it was to do it. The Small
Person particularly revelled in the hair, and eyes,
and noses. Noses had always struck her as being-
more or less unsatisfactory, as a rule, but with a
pencil in one's hand one can "chisel " them, and
" daintily model" them ; they can be given a " de-
licately patrician outline," a " proud aquiline
curve," " a coquettish tilt," and be made Greek or
Roman with a touch ; and as to hair, to be able to
bestow " torrents ' of it, or " masses," or " coils,"
or " coronals," or " clouds," is an actual relief to
the feelings. Out of a butcher's or greengrocer's
book there is a limit to the size of eyes, but within
their classic pages absolutely none.

Edith Somerville's hair, I remember distinctly,
was golden-brown. The weight of the " long,
thick, heavy curls which fell almost to her knee '
was never stated, but my impression — the cold,
callous impression produced by a retentive mem-
ory drawing from the shades of the past the pict-
ure its volume made on the Small Person's mind
-my impression would be that no mortal frame
could have borne it about. Edith Somerville
would have been dragged to earth by it. Her

216 The One I Kneiv the Best of AIL

eyes were " large, soft, violet eyes," and were
shaded by " fringes ' almost as long and heavy
as her hair. But neither of these advantages re-
strained her from active adventure and emotions
sufficiently varied and deep to have reduced her
to Hair Restorer as a stern necessity.

She was not created in a copy-book or recorded
on a slate. She was Told.

She began in school on one of the " Embroid-
ery' Afternoons. On two or three afternoons
each week the feminine portion of the school was
allowed to do fancy-work- -to embroider, to
crochet, to do tatting, or make slippers or cush-
ions, with pink lap-dogs, or blue tulips, or Moses
in the Bulrushes on them in wool-work and beads.
They were delightful afternoons, and the reins of
discipline were relaxed.

Sometimes some one read aloud, and when this
was not being done low-voiced talk was permitted.

It was not an uncommon thing for children to
say to each other :

" Do you know any tales to tell ?"

The Small Person, on being asked this ques-
tion, had told something more than once. But
being asked on this special afternoon by the little
girl sitting next to her, she did not reply encour-
agingly.

" I can't think of anything to tell," she said.

" Oh, try," said her small neighbor, whose

"Edith Somerville' 217

name was Kate. "Just try; you'll remember
something."

" I don't think I can," said the Small Person.
" The things 1 know best seem to have gone out
of mv head."

" Well, tell an old one, then," urged Kate.
<4 Just anything will do. You know such a lot."

The Small Person was making wonderful open-
work embroidery, composed of a pattern in holes
which had to be stitched round with great care.
She hesitated a moment, then took a fresh needle-
ful of cotton from the twisted coil which \vas
kept thrown round her neck, so that it was easy
to pull a thread out of.

" I don't want to tell an old one," she said ;
"but I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll make one up
out of my head."

" Make one out of your own head ! " said Kate,
with excitement. " Can you ? '

" Yes, I can," answered the Small Person, with
some slight awkwardness. " Don't you tell any-
one— but I sometimes make them up for my self-
just for fun, you know — and write them on slates,
but you can't get them all in on a slate."

" You write them ! ' Kate exclaimed in a
breathless whisper, staring at her with doubting
but respectful eyes.

" Yes," the Small Person whispered back.
" It's very easy."

218 The One I Knew the Best of All

"Why- gasped Kate. " Why--you're an

Auth'rcss— like Charles Dickens."

" No, I'm not," said the Small Person, a little
crossly, because somehow she felt rather ridicu-
lous and pretentious. " I'm not. Of course that's
different. I just make them up. It isn't a bit
hard."

" Do you make them up out of things you've
read ? " asked Kate.

" No, that wouldn't be any fun. I just think
them."

Kate gazed at her, doubtful respect mingling
itself with keen curiosity. She edged closer to
her.

" Make up one now," she said, " and tell it to
me. Nobody will hear if you speak low."

And so began the first chapter of " Edith
Somerville." It may have been the Small Per-
son's liberality in the matter of the golden-brown
hair, her lavishness as to features and complexion,
and the depth and size of the violet eyes which
fascinated her hearer. Suffice it to say she was
bound as by a spell. She edged closer and closer
and hung upon the words of the story-teller
breathlessly. She had an animated little face and
it became more animated with every incident.
Her crochet-work was neglected and she made
mistakes in it. If there was a moment's interrup-
tion for any reason whatever, the instant the cause

" Editk Somerville ' 219

was removed she snuggled excitedly against the
Small Person, saying:

" Oh, go on, go on ! Tell some more, tell some
more ! '

The Small Person became excited herself. She
was not limited by a slate-frame and she had the
stimulus of an enraptured audience. She " told '
" Edith Somerville ' all the afternoon, and when
she left the school-room Kate followed her while
she related it on the way home, and even stood
and told some more at the front gate. It was not
finished when they parted. It was not a story to
be finished in an afternoon. It was to be con-
tinued on the next opportunity. It was continued
at all sorts of times and in all sorts of places.
Kate allowed no opportunity or the ghost of one
to slip by.

"Just tell a little 'Edith Somerville' while
we're waiting," she would say, whether it was in
the few minutes before Miss Hatleigh came in,
or in a few minutes when she was called from
the room by some unforeseen incident, or on the
way downstairs, or in the cloak-room, or waiting
for the door-bell to be answered when the Small
Person went home to her dinner or tea. It was
not only the Embroidery Afternoons that were
utilized, any afternoon or morning, or any hour
would do.

For a short time the narrative was an entire

22O The One I Knew the Best of All

secret. The Small IVrson was as afraid of being
heard as she was when she entertained herself
with the Doll. When anyone approached she
dropped her voice very low or stopped speaking.
11 What makes you so funny ? ' Kate used to say.

41 I wouldn't care a bit. It's a beautiful tale."
And somehow one of the other little girls found
out that the beautiful tale was being told, and
Kate was made a go-between in the matter of
appeal.

" Lizzie wants to know if she may listen ? ' the
Small Person was asked, and after a little hesita-

' ' EditJi Somerv ille ' 221

tion she gave consent and Lizzie listened, and a
little later one or two others attached themselves
to the party. There were occasions when three
or four little girls revelled in the woes and rapt-
ures of Edith Somerville.

The relation lasted for weeks. It began with

the heroine's infancy and included her boarding-
school days and the adventures of all her com-
panions of both sexes. There was a youthful fe-
male villain whose vices were stamped upon her
complexion. She had raven hair and an olive
skin, and she began her career of iniquity at
twelve years old, when she told lies about the
nice blond girls at the boarding-school, and
through heartless duplicity and fiendish machina-
tions was the cause of Edith Somerville's being

put to bed — for nothing. She was always found
out in the most humiliating way and covered
with ignominy and confusion, besides being put
to bed herself and given pages and pages of ex-
tra lessons to learn. But this did not discour-
age her; she always began again. An ordinary
boarding-school would have dismissed her and
sent her home in charge of a policeman, but this
school could not have gone on without her.
Edith Somerville would have had no opportunity
to shine at all, and her life would have become a
flat, stale, and unprofitable affair. Nothing could
damp the ardor of the little female villain with

222 The One I Knew the Best of All

the large black eyes. When they had left school,
and Cecil Castleton, who had purple eyes and
soft black hair, loomed up at Somerville Hall,
with a tall, slender, graceful figure and a slender,
silken mustache, then the female villain began to
look about her seriously to invent new plots in
which she could be unmasked, to the joy of all
the blond people concerned. Cecil Castleton's
complexion was not olive and his hair was not
raven — it was only black, and soft and wavy, and
his eyes were purple, which quite saved him from
being a villain. You could not be a villain if you
had purple eyes. The female villain was natu-
rally deeply enamored of him, and wished to sep-
arate him from Edith Somerville. But, of course,
it was no use. She would do things it would take
days to tell about, and the narration of which
would cause the school-room audience to gasp
and turn quite pale, but Cecil Castleton always
found her out after Edith Somerville and himself
had suffered agonies. And it almost seemed as
if he could scarcely have helped it. One might
have imagined that she was extremely careful to
commit no crime which could not be exposed.
She was always dropping things where people
would find them when she had been listening,

o '

and she sat up at nights to keep a diary about the
lies she told and those she intended to tell, and
even wrote letters to her aunt that she misrht

' * Edit/i Somerville ' 223

gloat in black and white over the miseries and es-
trangements she was planning. Sometimes she
even put these letters into the wrong envelopes,
particularly when she intended to accept an in-
vitation to take tea with Edith Somerville's bos-
om friend. This feebleness of mind may, like
her character, have been the result of her com-
plexion, but it gave thrill and excitement to the
story.

And how the audience was enthralled! It
would be a pleasing triumph for a story-teller of
mature years to see such eyes, such lips, to hear
such exclamations of delight or horror as this in-
choate Small Person was inspired by.

Naturally, stories told in school and at odd
times meet with interruptions.

" Young ladies, you are talking ! ' Miss Hat-
leigh would say sometimes, or one would reach
the front gate, or some one would intrude, and
then everything stopped. When it began again
it began with a formula.

" And so — Edith came floating li^htlv

o o y

down the broad old oak stairway while Cecil
Castleton stood waiting below."

It always began " And so." That seemed to
join it on to what had gone before. Accordingly,
if the Small Person paused for a moment, Kate,
whose property she had become, and who ex-
ploited her as it were, and always sat next to her,

224 The OHC I Knew t/ic Best of All

would make a little excited movement of impa-
tience in her seat, and poke her in the side with
her elbow.

" And so- ' she would suggest. " And so-
and so- Oh, do go on ! '

And the others would lean forward also, and
repeat: "And so? — And so?' until she began

again.

The history of Edith Somerville being com-
pleted she began another romance of equal
power.

It was also of equal length, extending over
weeks of relation, and at its completion she began
another, and another, and another. There is no
knowing how many she told, but however her
audience varied Kate always sat next to her.
There were never more than two or three other
listeners. The Tale Listeners were a little exclu-
sive and liked to keep together.

It was through a brilliant inspiration of Kate's
that a banquet became part of the performance.
The Small Person was extremely fond of green
apples — very green and sour ones, such as can be
purchased at the apple-stands only sufficiently
early in the year to be considered unfit for human
food. A ripe and rosy apple offered no induce-
ments, but a perfectly green one, each crisp
bite of which was full of sharp juice, was a thing
to revel in.

' ' Edith Somerville ' 225

Knowing this taste, Kate had the adroit wit
to arrive one afternoon with her small pocket
bulging.

" I've got something ! " she whispered.

"What is it?"

" Something to eat while you're telling ' Edith
Somerville.' Green apples."

They were such a rapturous success and
seemed so inspiring in their effect that they
founded a custom. The Listeners got into the
habit of bringing them by turns. Green goose-
berries were also tried and soon Kate had an-
other inspiration.

" If I can get a little jug downstairs," she
whispered one afternoon, " I am going to fill it
with water and bring it up hidden in my frock.
And we can hide it under the form and take
drinks out of it when no one is looking-."

This may not appear to be a wildly riotous
proceeding, but as jugs of water were not ad-
mitted into the school-room and if one wanted a
drink one went decorously downstairs first, the
idea of a private jug and concealed libations was
a daring and intoxicating thing.

Only Kate would have thought of this. She
was a little girl with a tremendous flow of spirits
and an enterprising mind. She was sometimes
spoken of by the authorities, rather disapprov-
ingly, as " a Romp."
15

226 The Otic I Knew the Best of All

The Romp managed the feat of bringing up
the jug of water. It was quite thrilling to see
her come in as if she had nothing whatever con-
cealed behind the folds of her skirt. She walked
carefully and showed signs of repressing giggles
as she approached the Listeners.

" Have you got it?" whispered the Small
Person.

" Yes — under my frock. I'll put it under the
form."

It was put under the form and, as soon as it
was considered discreet, drinks were taken — sips
out of the side of the jug, combined with green
apples. Nobody was particularly thirsty, and if
they had been there was plenty of water down-
stairs, but that was not contraband, it was not
mingled with acid apples and " Edith Somer-
ville."

There was a suggestion of delightful riot and
dissipation in it. It was a sort of school-room
Bacchanalian orgie, and it added to the advent-
ures of Edith Somerville just the touch of
license needed. The Small Person's enjoyment
was a luxurious thing. To fill one's mouth with
green apple and wash it clown furtively from the
jug under the form was bordering on perilous
adventure. She was verv fond of bordering: on

^ o

adventure. When apples were no longer green
somebody brought raw turnips. Perhaps it was

' ' Edith Somerville ' 227

Kate again. She was a child with resources.
Some of the girls seemed to like them. The
Small Person did not, but she liked the sense of
luxury and peril they represented. She was so
pleased with the flavor of the situation that she
bore up against the. flavor of the raw turnips.
She never told her fellow-banqueters that she
did not enjoy them, that she found them tough
and queer, and that it needed a great deal of
water to wash them down. She took large bites
and obstinately refused to admit to herself that
they were on the whole rather nasty. To admit
this would have been to have lost an atmosphere
-an illusion. And she was very fond of her
illusions. She loved them. She went on tell-
ing the stones and the listeners hung on her
words and nourished themselves with deadly in-
digestibles. And nobody died — either of " Edith
Somerville " or the raw turnips. .

CHAPTER XIII.

CJiristoplicr Columbus

SHE told many stories " Continued in our Next,"
through many weeks, to the Listeners, whose
property she seemed to become. They had
their established places near her. Kate's was the
nearest, and, in fact, she was chief proprietress
of the entertainment. She had been, as it were,
the cause of Edith Somerville, who but for her
\voulcl never have existed. My impression is that
she arranged where the Listeners should sit, and
that her influence was employed by outsiders who
wanted to gain admission. She was an impetu-
ous child, and did not like to lose time. If by
some chance a Listener dropped out of the ranks
for an afternoon, and, returning, asked anxiously :

" What did you tell yesterday ? I didn't hear
that part, you know ; ' Kate would turn and
give a hasty and somewhat impatient resume of
the chief events related.

" Oh, Malcolm came," she would say, " and
Violet had a white dress with bluebells at her
belt, and he was jealous of Godfrey, and he got
in a temper at Violet, and they quarrelled, and he

Christopher Columbus 229

went away forever, and she went in a boat on the
lake, and a storm came up, and he hadn't quite
gone away, and he was wandering round the lake,
and he plunged in and saved her, and her golden
hair was all wet and tangled with bluebells, and
so- turning to the Small Person — "and so-
now go on ! '

And then would proceed the recital describing
the anguish and remorse of the late infuriate Mal-
colm as he knelt upon the grass by the side of
the drenched white frock and golden hair and
bluebells, embracing the small, limp, white hand,
and imploring the violet eyes to open and gaze
upon him once more.

They always did open. Penitent lovers were
always forgiven, rash ones were reconciled, wick-
edness was always punished, offended relatives
always relented - -particularly rich uncles and
fathers — opportune fortunes were left invariably
at opportune moments. No Listener was ever
harrowed too long or allowed to rust her crochet
needles entirely with tears. As the Small Person
was powerful, so she was merciful. As she was
lavish with the golden hair, so she was generous
with the rest. A tendency toward reckless liber-
ality and soft relenting marked her for its prey
even at this early hour. I have never been quite
able to decide whether she was a very weak or
a very determined creature — weak, because she

230 The One I Knew the Best of All

could not endure to sec Covent Garden merely
as the costermongers saw it — or determined, be-
cause she had the courage to persist in ignor-
ing the flavor of the raw turnip and in bestowing
on it a flavor of her own. After all, it is possi-
ble that to do this requires decision and fixed-
ness of purpose. In life itself, agreeable situa-
tions are so often flavored by the raw turnip, and
to close one's eyes steadily to the fact that it is
not a sun-warmed peach, not infrequently calls
upon one's steadiness of resource.

If she had been a sharp, executive, business-like
sort of child, she might have used her juvenile
power as a thing with a certain market value.
She might have dictated terms, made conditions,
and gained divers school-room advantages. But
she had no capacities of the sort. She simply
told the stories and the others listened. If there
had been a Listener astute enough in a mercantile
way to originate the plan of privately farming
her out, it might easily have been managed with-
out her knowledge. She had been a stupidly un-
suspecting little person from her infancy, and she
might always have been relied upon for the
stories. But there was no Listener with these
tendencies, that I am aware of.

There came a time when some windfall gave
into her possession an exercise-book which was
almost entirely unused. She wrote her first com-

Christopher Columbus 231

plete story in it. It had been her habit previous-
ly to merely write scenes from stories on the slate
and in the butcher's books. Sir Marmaduke
Maxwelton and his companions were never com-
pleted. But the one in the blank-book came to a
conclusion. Its title was " Frank Ellsworth, or
Bachelors' Buttons." There was nothing what-
ever in it which had any connection with buttons,
but the hero was a bachelor. He was twenty-
two, and had raven hair, and, rendered firm by
the passage of years of vast experience, had de-
cided that nothing earthly would induce him to
unite himself in matrimony. The story opened
with his repeating this to his housekeeper, who
was the typical adoring family servant. The
venerable lady naturally smiled and shook her
head with playful sadness — and then the discrim-
inating reader knew that in the next page would
loom up the Edith Somerville of the occasion,
whose large and lustrous azure eyes and vail of
pale golden ringlets would shake even the resolu-
tion of his stern manhood, and that, after pages
of abject weakness, he would fall at her feet in a
condition which could only be described as driv-
elling. My impression is that the story contained
no evidence whatever of intelligence. But it was
not at intelligence that the Small Person was
aiming. She was only telling a story. She was
very simple about it. She added the sub-title,

232 The One I Knew the Best of All

" or Bachelors' Buttons," because she was pleased
to see something in it vaguely figurative, and she
liked the sound.

This story she read to Mamma, who said it was
" a very pretty tale," and seemed somehow a lit-
tie amused. Perhaps, after all, Mamma was
clever. She never discouraged or made the
Small Person feel her efforts silly and preten-
tious, but her gentle praise gave no undue impor-
tance to them, and somehow seemed to make
them quite natural and innocent child develop-
ments. They were not things to be vain about,
only things to enjoy in one's own very young way.

The Small Person obtained other blank-books
and began other stories, but none were ever fin-
ished. It always happened that a new one in-
sisted on being begun and pushed the first aside.
A very long one — the pride of her heart— called
" Celeste, or Fortune's Wheel," was the guiding
star of her twelfth year, but it was not concluded,
and was thrown into the fire with all the rest
when she left her own land for a new one.

The unfinished stories rather troubled her.
When the infant regret that she was not a suita-
able subject for Sunday-school Memoirs had
melted into a vague young desire not to have
many faults, she used to wonder if the fact that
so many stories were begun and not finished, was
a sign of an undesirable mental quality.

Christopher Columbus 233

"I ought \& finish them," she use to think, re-
morsefully. " I ought not to begin things I don't
finish." And she reproached herself quite se-
verely.

" Shall I go on like this, and never finish one ? '
she thought, and she was vaguely distressed by a
shadowing feeling that it might be her sort to be
always beginning, and never finishing.

Inspired by her example, several of the Listen-
ers began to write stories in old blank-books.

They were all echoes of Edith Somerville, and
when they were given to her to read, she sternly
repressed in herself any occasional criticism
which arose in her small mind. She was afraid
that criticism on her part, even though only men-
tal, was a sign of what was generally spoken of as
" a bad disposition." She was, in private, ex-
tremely desirous not to have " a bad disposition."

" I am conceited," she said to herself. " That
is the reason I don't think their stories are as nice
as mine. It is vulgar and ridiculous to be con-
ceited, besides being bad."

There was one Listener who described her
hero, at an interesting juncture, as " holding out
his tiny lily hand," and something within her was
vaguely revolted by a sense of the grotesque, but
she could not have been induced to comment
upon the circumstance.

It might, in these days, be interesting to ex-

234 The One I Knew the Best of All

amine these manuscripts — if they still existed-
with a view to discovering if they contained any
germ of a reason why one child should have con-
tinued to write stories throughout life, while the
rest did not write again. The romances of the
Small Person were wildly romantic and pre-
posterously sentimental, without a doubt. That
there was always before her mind's eye a distinct
and strongly colored picture of her events, I re-
member ; the Listeners laughed and occasionally
cried, and were always rapt in their attention ;
but if regarded with the impartial eye of cold
criticism, my impression is that they might be
dismissed as arrant nonsense. The story ran riot
through their pages, unbilled and unbridled.

But no one ever saw them but herself. Even
Mamma heard only the reading of " Frank Ells-
worth." The rest, scribbled in copy-books and
blank-books, accumulated in darkness and pri-
vacy, until the first great event of her life oc-
curred.

It was a very great event, and, I am convinced,
changed the whole color of existence for her. It
was no less a matter than leaving England, to
begin a new life in America.

The events which preceded, and were the final
reasons for it, were not pleasant ones. She was
too young to be told all the details of them. But
the beginning of it all was a sort of huge Story,

Christopher Columbus 235

which seized upon her imagination. It seemed
to her that, for years and years, everyone seemed
to live, more or less, under the shadow of a cloud
spoken of as "the War in America." This was
probably felt more in the cotton manufacturing
centres than anywhere else. Lancashire was the
great county of cotton factories. Manchester
was the very High Altar of the God Cotton.
There were rich men in Manchester who were
known everywhere as Cotton Lords. The smoke

rolling from the tall Babel Towers which were
<_>

the chimneys of their factories, made the sky
dingy for scores of miles around, the back streets
were inhabited by the men and women who
worked at their looms, the swarms of smoke-be-
grimed children who played everywhere, began
to work in the factories as early as the law al-
lowed. All the human framework of the great
dirty city was built about the cotton trade. All
the working classes depended upon it for bread,
all the middle classes for employment, all the
rich for luxury. The very poor, being wakened
at four in the morning by the factory bells,
flocked to the buildings over which the huge
chimneys towered and rolled their volume of
black smoke ; the respectable fathers of families
spent their days in the counting-rooms or differ-
ent departments of the big warehouses ; the men
of wealth lived their lives among cotton, buying

236 The One I Knew the Best of All

and selling, speculating and gaining or losing in
Cotton, Cotton, Cotton.

" If the war in America does not end," it began
to be said at one time, " there will be no more
cotton, and the manufacturers will not know what
to do."

But this was at first, when everyone believed
that the difficulty would settle itself in a few
months, and the North and South would be united
again. No one was pessimist enough to believe
that such a terrible thing would happen as that
the fighting would continue.

But after a while other things were said.

" There is beginning to be a scarcity of cotton.
People even say that some of the factories may
have to stop work."

Every closed factory meant hunger to scores of
operatives- -even hundreds. But still the war
went on in America.

" Jackson's factory has stopped work because
there is no cotton ! " came a little later.

Then :

" Bright's has stopped work ! All the opera-
tives thrown out of employment. Jones is going
to stop, and Perkins can only keep on about two
weeks longer. They are among the biggest, and
there will be hundreds on the street. Brownson's
ruined. Had no cotton to fill his engagements.
All these enormously rich fellows will feel it aw-

Christopher Columbus 237

fully, but the ones who are only in moderate cir-
cumstances will go to smash ! '

It was oftenest the Boys who brought these re-
ports. And still the war went on in America, and
the Small Person heard rumors of battles, of vic-
tories and losses, of killed and wounded, of the
besieging of cities with strange-sounding names,
of the South overwhelmed by armies, of planta-
tions pillaged, magnolia-embowered houses ran-
sacked and burned. At least when she heard of
Southern houses being destroyed, she herself at
once supplied the magnolias. To her the South
was the land of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." A planta-
tion meant a boundless estate, swarming with
negroes like Uncle Tom, Aunt Chloe, Eliza, and
the rest of them, and governed either by a Legree
or a Saint Claire, who lived on a veranda covered
with luxuriant vines and shaded by magnolia-
groves, where Eva flitted about in a white frock
and long, golden-brown ringlets.

She did not in the least know what the war was
about, but she could not help sympathizing with
the South because magnolias grew there, and peo-
ple dressed in white sat on verandas covered with
vines. Also, there were so many roses. How
could one help loving a place where there were
so many roses? When she realized that the
freedom from slavery of the Uncle Toms and
Aunt Chloes and Elizas was involved, she felt

238 77ie One I Knew the Best of All

the situation a strained one. It was impossible
not to wish the poor slaves to be freed — the story
itself demanded it. One wept all through " Uncle
Tom's Cabin " because they had not their "free-
dom," and were sold away from their wives and
children, and beaten and hunted with blood-
hounds ; but the swarms of them singing and
speaking negro dialect in the plantations were
such a picturesque and lovable feature of the
Story ; and it was so unbearable to think of the
plantations being destroyed, the vine-covered ve-
randas disappearing, and the magnolias bloom-
ing no more to shade the beautiful planters in
Panama hats and snow-white linen. She was so
attached to planters, and believed them all — ex-
cept the Legrees — to be graceful and picturesque
creatures.

But it seemed that the war prevented their
sitting on their verandas sipping iced juleps
through straws, while their plantations brought
forth cotton.

Factory after factory closed, thousands of oper-
atives were out of work, there was a Cotton Fam-
ine. The rich people were being ruined, the poor
were starving, there was no trade. The ware-
houses began to feel it, the large shops and the
small ones, more or less directly ; all Manchester
prosperity depended upon Cotton, and as there
was no Cotton there was no money.

Christopher Columbus

239

" If the war in America were only over," every-
body said.

The stones of the starving operatives became
as terrible as the stories from America. Side by
side with accounts of battles there were, in the
newspapers, accounts of the " Lancashire Dis-
tress," as it was called. Funds were
raised by kind-hearted people in
all sorts of places to give aid to
the suffering creatures. There
were Soup Kitchens estab-
lished, and pitiful tales were
told of the hundreds of hol-
low-eyed, ravenous men
arid women and chil-
dren w h o crowded
about their doors.

" If t' war i' 'Merica
ud coom to an eend,"
they said among themselves,
" we shouldna aw be clemmin." And
it was not only the operatives who suffered,
all classes were involved as the months went on.

Little girls and boys began to say to each
other :

" We can't go to Wales this summer. Papa
says he can't afford it. There are so many of us
and it takes such a lot of money. It's the war in
America that makes him feel poor."

240 The One I Kne'tO the Best of All

Or,

" The Blakes are not going to have a Christmas
party. Mr. Blake has lost money through the
war in America."

Or more awe-inspiring still :

" Do you know, Mr. Hey wood is a bankrupt.
The war in America has ruined his business, and
he has to close his warehouse."

Even Mamma began to look harassed and anx-
ious. She had neither a factory nor a warehouse,
but she also had her difficulties and losses. Poor
gentle and guileless little lady, she was all unfit to
contend with a harsh, sharp, sordid world. She
had tried to be business-like and practical, because,
poor Papa being gone, there were the three little
girls to be taken care of and the boys to be given
a career in life. Sometimes the Small Person
found her at her dressing-table taking off her lit-
tle black bonnet with gentle trembling hands and
with tears in the blue eyes " Poor Papa ' had
thought like Amy Robsart's and Jeanie Deans's.

" Is there anything the matter, Mamma?" she
would ask.

" Yes, dear," Mamma would answer tremblingly.
" I have a great deal to be anxious about. I am
afraid I am not a very good business woman, and
so many things go wrong. If I only had poor
Papa to advise me- - ; " and the soft, deprecat-
ing voice would break.

CJiri stop her Columbus 241

"Don't, don't be low-spirited, Mamma," the
Small Person would say, with a tremor in her
own voice. " It will all come right after a
while."

" Oh, my dear," Mamma would exclaim, at once
tried and worn out, " nothing will ever come right
until this dreadful war is over in America."

If this were a record of incidents, many might
be recorded of this time. But it is only a record
of the principal events which influenced the men-
tal life of a Small Person.

There came at last a time when the war was
ended, and there was a pathetic story of the first
bales of cotton being met by a crowd of hunger-
and trouble-worn factory operatives with sobs and
tears, and cries of rapturous welcome — and of one
man — perhaps a father who had sat by a fireless
hearth, broken of spirit and helpless, while his
young swarm cried for bread — a poor gaunt fel-
low who, lifting his hat, with tears running down
his cheeks, raised his voice in the Doxology, one
after another joining in, until the whole mass sang,
in one great swelling chorus :

" Praise God, from whom all blessings flow ;
Praise Him, all creatures here below ;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host ;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

The Small Person heard this story with a large
16

242 The One I Knew the Best of All

lump in her throat. She felt that it meant so
much, and that there must have been strange, sor-
rowful things going on in the cottages in the Back
Streets.

It was after she had heard it that the great

/ /'t -vurn / .'j. ,t Jr.'',' • ^> v

„,> :l» OLfffJI r^n ..*,*• 6. £•?» * ,1T Ji" • r.

event occurred. She entered a room one morn-
ing to find Mamma and the two boys evidently
discussing with unusual excitement a letter with
a foreign post-mark.

" It seems so sudden ! " said Mamma, in rather
an agitated voice.

Christopher Columbus 243

" It would be a great lark," said one of the boys.
" I should like it ! r

" I don't think I could ever make up my mind
to leave England ! ' fluttered Mamma. " It
seems such a long way ! '

The Small Person looked from one to the
other.

" What is a long way ? ' she asked. " What
are you talking about, Mamma ? '

Mamma looked at her, and her gentle face
wore an almost frightened-like expression.

" America ! " she said, " America ! '

" America ! ' exclaimed the Small Person, with
wide-opened eyes. " What about America ? '

" We're going there," cried her younger
brother, who was given to teasing her. " The
whole job lot of us ! I say, isn't it a lark ! '

" My dear, don't talk so thoughtlessly ! ' said
Mamma. " I have had a letter from your Uncle
John, in America. He thinks it would be a good
thing for us to go there. He believes he could
find openings for the boys."

" Oh ! ' gasped the Small Person, " America !
Do you — do you think you will go ? Oh,
Mamma," with sudden rapture — " do — do ! '

It seems so incredibly delightful ! To go to
America ! The land of " Uncle Tom's Cabin ! '
Perhaps to see plantations and magnolias ! To
be attended by Aunt Chloes and Topsys ! To

244 The One I Knew the Best of All

make a long voyage — to cross a real Atlantic
Ocean — in a ship which was not the Green Arm-
Chair !

The real events of her life had been so simple
and its boundaries had been so limited. From
the Back Garden of Eden to the Square, and
from the Square to the nearest mild sea-side
town, which seemed to be made up of a Pier,
bathing-machines, lodgings, and shrimps for tea,
these were her wildest wanderings. The inhabi-
tants of the Square were not given to travel.
The Best Friend had spent a summer in Scot-
land, and the result of searching cross-examina-
tion as to her sojourn in this foreign land had
seemed to give the whole flavor of Sir Walter
Scott. She had sat by a " loch/' and she had
heard people speak Gaelic, which she had found
an obstacle to fluent interchange of opinion.
The Small Person had once seen a very little
girl who was said to have come from America.
She had longed to talk to her and find out what

it was like to live in America — what America
was like, what it was like to cross the Atlantic
Ocean. Her craving was to find out all about
America — to have it summed up as it were with
definite clearness. But the very little girl was
only five years old, and she was not an intelli-
gent little girl, and did not seem to regard herself
as a foreign product, or to know that America

Christopher Columbus

245

was foreign and so intensely interesting1. But
the Small Person looked upon her with defer-
ence and yearning, and watched her from afar,
being rather surprised that she did not seem to
know how almost weirdly fascinating she was.

And now to think that there was a possibility
-even a remote
one - - that she
might go to
America her-
self !

" Oh, Mamma,
please do, please
do / ' she said
again and again,
in the days that
followed.

The Boys re-
garded the pros-
pect with rapt-
ure. To them
it meant wild
adventure of ev-
ery description. They were so exhilarated that
they could talk of nothing else, and began to
bear about them a slight suggestion of being of
the world of the heroes of Captain Mayne Reid
and Fenimore Cooper. They frequently referred
to the "Deerslayer" and the " Last of the Mohi-

"A .

'lh

246 The One I Knew the Best of All

cans," and brought in interesting details gath-
ered from " a fellow I know, who comes from
New York." Certain descriptions of a magnifi-
cent thoroughfare known as Broadway impressed
the Small Person immensely. She thought that
Broadway was at least half a mile wide, and
that before the buildings adorning it Bucking-
ham Palace and Windsor Castle must sink into
utter insignificance — particularly a place called
A. T. Stewart's. These opinions were founded
upon the statements of the "fellow who came
from New York."

It really was a delightfully exciting time.
The half-awed rapture of hearing the possible
prospect talked over by Mamma and the Uncles
and Aunts, the revelation one felt one was mak-
ing in saying to an ordinary boy or girl, " Do
you know that perhaps we are going to Amer-
ica ! ' There was thrill enough for a lifetime

• • j_
in it.

And when at last Mamma " and the Aunts
and Uncles and all the relations and friends '
had decided the matter, and everybody went to
bed knowing that they were going to America,
and that everything was to be sold and that the
Atlantic was to be crossed, a new world seemed
to be looming up, and the Small Person in the
midst of her excitement had some rather queer
little feelings and lay awake staring in the dark-

Christopher Columbus 247

ness and wondered who would get the Green
Arm-Chair and the Nursery Sofa.

And then came greater excitement still.
There seemed such thousands of things to be
done and such a sense of intoxicating novelty in
the air. Everybody was so affectionate and
kind, and staying with a family of cousins
while the house was disposed of seemed the
most delightful rollicking thing. Two families
in one house filled it to overflowing and pro-
duced the most hilarious results. There was
laughing nearly all night, and darting in and out
on errands and visits all day, there was a buy-
ing of things, and disposing of things, the see-
ing friends, the bidding good-by, and somehow
through it all that delicious sense of adventure
and expectation and wild, young, good spirits
and fun.

And this all reached a climax in an excited,
entrancing journey to Liverpool, with two rail-
road carriages full of cousins, with an aunt or so
in attendance. Then there was a night in Liver-
pool, in which it was almost impossible to sleep
at all because there was so much to be talked
over in bed, and the next morning was so thrill-
ingly near and at the same time so unbearably
far away.

And when it came at last there came with it
the sending away to the ship of cases and trunks,

248 The One I Knew the Best of All

the bundling into cabs of all the cousins, with
final packages of oranges and lemons and all sorts
of remedies and resources, the tremulously de-
lightful crowding on the wharf, the sight of the
great ship, the nervous ecstasy of swarming upon
it, exploring, exclaiming, discovering, glancing

over the groups of fellow-
passengers and sin-
gling out those who
looked interesting.
And then, while
the excitement
was at the high-
est, there came
the ringing of
the fateful bell,
and the Small
Person felt her
heart give a
curious wild
thump and
strange elec-
tric thrills run
down into her
fingers.

Suddenly
she felt as if too
much was hap-
pening all at

Christopher Columbus 249

once — as if things were woful. She wanted to go
to America — yes, but everybody seemed to have
his eyes filled with tears, people were clinging to
each other's hands, shaking hands fiercely, clasped
in each other's arms, the people in the groups
about her were all agitated, Mamma was being
embraced by the aunts, with tears, the cousins
made farewell clutches, their eyes suddenly full
of tears.

" Good-by, good-by ! ' everyone was saying.
" Good-by. I hope you'll be happy ! Oh ! it's so
strange to see you go ! We shall so miss you ! '
The Small Person kissed and was kissed with
desperate farewell fervor. People had not then
begun to make summer voyages from America to
England every year. Going to America was
going to another world — a world which seemed
divided from quiet simple English homes almost
by the gulf of Eternity.

" Oh ! Good-by, good-by," she cried, quite pas-
sionately. " I wish you were all going with
us ! "

A friend of an older cousin was of the par-
ty. He was a nice fellow she had known from
childhood. Because he was nice enough to be
trusted, she had given him her little dog, not
knowing she might have taken it with her.

He was the last to shake hands with her.
He looked rather nervous and deeply moved.

250 The One I Knew the Best of All

" Good-by," he said. " I hope you
will like America."

" Good-by," she said, looking at
him through tears. " You- -I know
you'll be good to Flora."

" Yes," he answered, " I'll be good
to Flora."

And after looking at her a second
he seemed to decide that she was
still sufficiently a little girl to be
kissed, and he kissed her wet cheek

affectionately and
walked away with an
evident effort to
maintain a decided
air. And when the
ship began to move
slowly away he stood
with the aunts and
cousins on the wharf,
and they all waved
their handkerchiefs,
and the Small Per-
son leaned upon the

deck-rail, with tears running down her cheeks,
and said to herself, under her breath,

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! Noiv I'm going to
America."

CHAPTER XIV.

The Dryad Days

THERE were many of them so beautiful- -so
newly, strangely beautiful — that words seem poor
things to try and describe them with. Words are
always poor things. One only uses them because
one has nothing else. There is a wide, wide dis-
tance— a distance which is more than a matter of
mere space — between a great murky, slaving,
manufacturing town in England, and mountains
and forests in Tennessee — forests which seem end-
lessly deep, mountains covered with their depths
of greenness, their pines and laurels, swaying and
.blooming, vines of wild grape and scarlet trumpet-
'flower swaying and blooming among them, tangled
with the branches of sumach and sassafras, and all
things with branches held out to be climbed over
and clung to and draped.

To have lived under the shadow of the factory
chimneys, to have looked up at the great, soft,
white clouds and fleecy, floating islands, always
seeing them somewhat tarnished, as it were, with
the yellowness of the chimney -smoke, to have

252 The One I Knew the Best of All

picked one's daisies and buttercups in the public
park, always slightly soiled with the tiny dots of
black — the soft drift of " smuts ' which never
ceased falling — all this is an excellent preparation
for rapture, when one is brought face to face with
Dryad haunts, and may live Dryad days.

After the passing of the years in the Back Gar-
den of Eden the Small Person had always been
so accustomed to the ever-falling little rain of
"smuts " that it had become an accepted feature
of existence. They fell upon one's features, and
one of the gentle offices of courtesy was to remove
them from beloved and intimate cheeks or noses,
and delicately direct the attention of mere ac-
quaintances to their presence and exact situation.
They made spots upon one's hat-ribbons, and dis-
figured one's best frock, and it occurred to no one
to touch anything or rest against it without pre-
vious examination. In fact, one was so accustomed
to their presence that the thought of resenting it
rarely intruded itself, and one scarcely realized
that there existed people who were not so rained
upon. The Small Person had always felt it sad,
however, that the snow — even the pure, untrodden,
early morning snow- -was spoiled so soon by the
finer snow of black which fell upon its fair surface
and speckled it. One of the most exciting nursery
experiments in winter had been to put a cupful of
milk, sweetened with nursery brown sugar, onto the

The Dryad Days 253

window-sill outside, with the thrilling expectation
that it would freeze and become ice-cream. This
was always tried when it snowed — and one could
get the milk and sugar ; but as Manchester weather
was rarely very cold, the mixture never froze, and
if it had done so, it would never have become ice-
cream, or anything more nearly resembling it than
pale-blue skimmed milk and brown sugar would
make. There had been rare occasions when a thin
coating of ice had formed upon the top of the
preparation, and been devoured with joy- -but it
usually remained in a painfully sloppy condition,
and was covered with a powder of fine soot. And
when in despair one took it in and disposed of it
with a spoon, with an effort to regard it as a lux-
ury, because if it had frozen it would have been
ice-cream — the flavor of smoke in it was always
its strongest feature. This was an actual trial to
the Small Person, because it interfered with the
pretence that it was ice-cream. It really was so
horribly smoky. Everything had been more or
less smoky all through her childhood. And she
had an absolute passion for the country. She
adored the stories in which people had parks or
gardens, or lived in rustic cottages, or walked in
forests, or across moors, or climbed " blue hills."
She revelled in the thoughts of bluebells and
honeysuckles, and harebells and wild roses. She
" pretended ' them in the Square itself. And

254 The One I Knew the Best of All

this, by the way, recalls a thrilling incident which
is perhaps sufficiently illustrative to be worth
recording.

One or two of the large vacant houses — perhaps
all of them — had once had large gardens behind
them. Years of neglect and factory chimney
smoke had transformed them into cindery des-
erts, where weeds grew rank in patches where
anything could grow at all, and where, despite
the high brick walls surrounding them, all sorts
of rubbish accumulated, and made both weeds
and bareness more hideous, and their desolate-
ness more complete. Usually the doors of en-
trance were kept locked, and there was no oppor-
tunity of even looking in from the outside. This
fact the Small Person had always found enchant-
ing, because it suggested mystery. So long as
one could not cross the threshold, one could
imagine all sorts of beautifulness hidden by the
walls too high to be looked over, the little green
door which was never unclosed. It made her
wish so that she could get inside.

For years she never did so, but at last there
came a rumor that the big houses were to be
pulled down, to make room for smaller ones, and
then it was whispered about among the Square
children that the little green door in the high
wall which surrounded the garden behind the
big house, called for some mysterious reason

The Dryad Days 255

" Page's Hall," had been opened, and some bold
spirit had walked in and even walked out again.

And so there arrived an eventful hour when the
Small Person herself went in — passed through the
enchanted door and stood within the mysterious
precincts looking around her.

If she had seen it as it really was she would
probably have turned and fled. But she did not

-she saw nothing as it was — Grace au Bon Dieu !
She saw a Garden. At least it had been a Gar-
den once — and there were the high brick walls
around it - - and the little door so long unop-
ened, and once there had been flowers and trees
in it; they had really bloomed and been green
and shady there, though it was so long ago. The
charming treasure of her life had been the story
that once the Square itself had been an orna-
mental lake with swans and lilies in it.

So she wandered about in a dream — " pretend-
ing." That changed it all. The heaps of earth
and rubbish were mounds of flowers, the rough,
coarse docks were lilies with broad leaves, every
poor green thing struggling for life in the hard
earth had a lovely name. They were green things
at least, and she loved them for that. They grew

-just as real flowers might have done — in a place
which had once been a Garden.

All her little life she had felt a sort of curious
kinship with things which grew- -the trodden

256 The One I Knew the Best of All

grass in the public park, the soiled daisies and
buttercups. She had lived among her bricks and
mortar and smoke with the yearnings of a little
Dryad underlying all her pleasures. In the
Square real trees and flowers and thick green
ferns and grass seemed joys so impossible.

She walked about slowly. " Pretending' with
all her power. She bent down and looked the
weeds in their faces and touched them tenderly.
They were such poor things, but in some places
they grew quite thickly together and covered the
ugly barrenness of the earth with a coarse, simple
greenery which represented vaguely to her mind
something which was quite beautiful. She felt
grateful to them.

" Suppose they were roses and pansies and lilies
and violets," she said to herself. " How beautiful
it would be ! "

And then her dear Angel — the beloved Story-
laid its kind, beautiful hand upon her, and as she
stood among the docks and thistles, if an older
person could have looked on - - understanding-
surely he would have seen light and color and
glow come into her child face.

" You are roses ! " she said. " You arc violets-
and lilies — and hyacinths and daffodils and snow-
drops ! You arc ! '

She had reached a mound and was standing on
it. Beside it, and between herself and the garden

The Dryad Days 257

wall, there was a sort of broad, deep ditch which
seemed to have no reason for existence and of-
fered no explanation of itself. The mound had
probably been formed by the piling up of the
earth and rubbish dug out and thrown up. The
green things grew over the mound and were rank
even in the ditch itself, scrambling down its ugly
sides and half filling it. She looked into this ditch
and was pleased with it.

" This is the castle Moat," she said. " It is a
Moat — and these are the castle gardens."

The Moat enraptured her. It made all things
possible. She rambled about building around it.

" There is a Bower here," she said, in the very
low voice she reserved for such occasions. " It is a
Bower covered with roses. There are a great
many trees — great big trees with thick trunks and
broad, broad branches. There are oaks and
beeches and chestnut-trees and they spread their
boughs across the avenues from side to side.

There are Avenues. They are arched over with
green. There are banks and banks of flow-
ers— banks of primroses and banks of violets."
She was always lavish. " There are bluebells-
and thick green grass and emerald velvet moss,
and ferns and ferns. There are fountains and Grot-
toes— and everything is carpeted with flowers."

It was all as abundant as Edith Somerville's
hair.

258 The One I Knciv the Best of All

And the Garden — the long dead Garden — the
poor old, forgotten, deserted Garden ! Did it
know that suddenly it had bloomed again — as
it had never bloomed before, even half a century
ago in its palmiest days ?

It would be beautiful to believe that it did, and
that some strange, lovely struggle and thrill so
moved it, that Nature herself helped it to one
last effort to live — expressing itself in a myste-
rious and wonderful thing. If this was not so,
how did a flower grow there ?

It seemed wonderful to the Small Person-
though it was such a tiny thing — such a common
thing in some places that there are country-bred
people who would not have stooped to pick it
up. But she had never seen one.

She was bending over the green things on the
mound and telling them again that they were
flowers — when she saw a tiny red speck close
to the ground.

It was scarcely more than a speck — and a flow-
er was such a wildly improbable thing that she
could not believe her eyes.

" It's a flower ! ' she gasped. " A tiny red
thing!' and she knelt among the weeds and
gloated on it. " It's a real flower ! " she said,

" gr oiving !

She did not know what it was. She took it up
as if it had been a holy thing. Only a little

The Dryad Days

259

Dryad, who had spent her life in the Square
looking out at the slates for rain, could have felt
as she did. She looked at it closer and closer,
and then remembered something she had read in
some poem of rural scenes, the name of some

260 The One I Knew the Best of All

little thing- which was tiny and red, and grew low
and close to the earth. It did not really matter
whether she was quite right or not — she could not
know — but she loved the name and hoped it was
the real one.

" It is a Pimpernel," she said, " a scarlet Pim-
pernel. It must be!' And she ended with a
wild little shout to the other children who were
exploring within hail.

"Come here!' she cried. "Come here, and
see what I have found. I have found a Pimpernel
-a scarlet Pimpernel like those that grow in the
fields!"

*••••••

And from a life where a growing green thing
was a marvel and a mystery, and a pimpernel
an incongruous impossibility, she went into the
Dryad da3rs. They began with a journey of two
weeks after land was reached, with the banks
of the St. Lawrence, with days of travel through
Canadian forests, with speechless, rapt wanderings
on the borders of a lake like a sea, with short
rests at cities which seemed new and foreign,

though they were populated with people who
spoke English, and which ended at last in a
curious little village — one unpaved street of wood-
en houses, some painted white and some made of
logs, but with trees everywhere, and forests and
hills shutting it in from the world.

The Dryad Days 261

Then she lived in the Story. Quiet English
people, who, driven by changes of fortune, wan-
dered thousands of miles and lived without ser-
vants in a log cabin, were a Story themselves.
The part of the house which was built of logs
enchanted her. It was quite like Fenimore
Cooper, . but that there were no Indians. She
yearned inexpressibly for the Indians. There
must have been Indians some time, and there
must be some left in the forests. This was what
she hoped and tried to find out about. It is pos-
sible her inquiries into the subject sometimes
rather mystified the owners of the white wooden
houses, to whom Indians seemed less thrilling.
Occasionally an Indian or two were seen she
found, but they were neither blood-thirsty nor
majestic. They did not build wigwams in the
forests, or wear moccasons and wampum ; they
did not say " The words of the Pale Face make
warm the heart of the White Eagle."

" They gener'ly come a beggin' somepn good
to eat," one of the white house-owners said to
her. " Vittles, or a chaw er terbacker or a dram
er whiskey is what they re arter. An' he'll lie an
steal, a Injun will, as long as he's a Injun. I
hain't no use for a Injun."

This was not like Fenimore Cooper, but she
persuaded herself that the people she questioned
had not chanced to meet the right kind of Abo-

262 The One I Knew the Best of All

rigine. She preferred Fenimore Cooper's, even
when he wore his war-paint and was scalping the
Pale Face — or rather pursuing him with that
intent without attaining his object. She de-
lighted in conversation with the natives — the

real native, who had a wonderful dialect. As she
had learned to speak Lancashire she learned to
speak East Tennessean and North Carolinian
and the negro dialect. Finding that her English
accent was considered queer she endeavored to
correct it and to speak American. She found
American interesting and rather liked it. That

was part of the Story, too. To use, herself, in
casual conversation, the expressions she had
heard in American stories related with delight in
England was a joy. She used to wonder what
the aunts and cousins and the people in the
Square would think if they heard her say " I
guess," and " I reckon," if they would be shocked
or if they would think it amusing.

The Square — the wet, shiny slates — the soiled
clouds and falling soot seemed more than thou-
sands of miles away — it was as if they could
scarcely have been real, as if she must have
dreamed them. Because she was really a Dryad
she felt no strangeness in the great change in
her life. It seemed as if she must always have
lived with the vast clear space of blue above
her, with hundreds of miles of forests surround-

The Dryad Days 263

ing her, with hills on every side, with that view
of a certain far-off purple mountain behind
which the sun set after it had painted such splen-
dors in the sky. To get up at sunrise and go
out into the exquisite freshness and scent of earth
and leaves, to wander through the green aisles
of tall, broad-leaved, dew-wet Indian corn, whose
field sloped upward behind the house to the
chestnut-tree which stood just outside the rail
fence one climbed over on to the side of the hill,
to climb the hill and wander into the woods
where one gathered things, and sniffed the air
like some little wild animal, to inhale the odor
of warm pines and cedars and fresh damp mould,
and pungent aromatic things in the tall " Sage
grass," to stand breathing it all in, one's whole
being enveloped in the perfume and warm fresh
fragrance of it, one's face uplifted to the deep,
pure blue and the tops of the pines swaying a
little before it — to hear little sounds breaking the
stillness when one felt it most — lovely little
sounds of birds conversing with each other,
asking questions and answering them and some-
times being sweetly petulant, of sudden brief
little chatters of squirrels, of lovely languorous
cawing of crows high above the tree tops, of the
warm-sounding boom and drone of a bee near
the ground — strange as it may seem, to do, to
feel, to see and hear all this was somehow not

264 The One I Knew the Hest of All

new to her. She was not a stranger here — she
had been a stranger in the Square when she had
lifted her face to the low-hanging, smoky clouds,
talking to them, imploring them when they would
make no response. Without knowing why — be-
cause she was too young to comprehend — she
felt that she had begun to be alive, and that be-
fore, somehow, she had not been exactly living.
Though the poor green things in a smoke and
soot-smitten Sahara had moved her and seemed
to say something vaguely, though one pimpernel
astray through some miracle among the rubbish
had made her heart cry aloud, the full bounty of
all Nature poured out before her in one magnifi-
cent gift seemed to be something she had always
known — something she must have been waiting
for all through her young years of exile — a na-
tive land which she could not have been kept
away from always. And the most perfectly raptur-
ous of her moments always brought to her a feel-
ing that somehow — in some subtle way — she was
part of it — part of the trees, of the warm winds
and scents and sounds and grasses. This — though
she had not reached the point of knowing it — was
because ages before — dim, far-off beautiful ages
before, she had been a little Faun or Dryad — or
perhaps a swaying thing of boughs and leaves
herself, but this had been when there had been
fair pagan gods and goddesses who found the

The Dryad Days 265

fair earth beautiful enough for deity itself. And
some strange force had reincarnated her in the
Square.

It is worth mention, perhaps, that here she
ceased to " pretend " in the old way. There was
no need to " pretend." There were real things
enough. She had laid the Doll aside reluctantly
some time before — doing it gradually — after some
effort at being purely maternal with it, which,
after some tentative experiment, was a failure,
because she so loved the real, warm babies that
to hover over a wax one seemed an insult to her
being. She lived in the woods, and she wrote
stories on slates and pieces of paper. But the
Story took a new tone. Sir Marmaduke Max-
welton was less prominent, and the hair of Edith
Somerville flowed less freely over the pages.
Hair and eyes seemed less satisfying and less nec-
essary. She began to deal with emotions. She
found emotions interesting — and forests and
Autumn leaves assisted them and seemed part of
them somehow, as she was part of the forests
themselves. In the Square she had imagined-
in the forests she began to feel.

She lived in the village long enough to gain a
great deal of atmosphere, and then she went with
the family to another place. The new home was
not very far away from the first one, and though
it was within a few miles of a place large enough

266 The One I Knew tJic Best of All

to be called a town, instead of a village, it was
even more sylvan. This time the house was a
little white one and she did not deplore its not
being built of logs, because she had lived beyond
the Fenimore Cooper standpoint and expected
neither Indians nor bears. She no longer regarded
America as foreign, and had attained a point of
view quite different from that of her early years.

The house was not at the foot of a hill, in these
days it was at the top of one. It was not a very
high hill, and the house was a tiny one, balanced
quaintly on the summit, as if some flood had left
it there on receding.

" Noah's Ark was left like it on Mount Ararat,"
said the Small Person. " Let us call it Noah's
Ark, Mount Ararat. Think how queer it will
look on letters." So it was called Noah's Ark,
Mount Ararat, and the address did look queer on
letters.

The house was a bandbox, but the place was
adorable in these days. One stood on the little
porch of Noah's Ark and looked out over under-
growth and woods and slopes and hills which
ended in three ranges of mountains one behind
the other. The farthest was the Alleghanies. It
was at this place that what were most truly the
Dryad days were lived. There were no neigh-
bors but the woods, there was no village, the
town was too far away to be visited often bv peo-

The Dryad Days 267

pie who must walk. There was nothing to dis-
tract one.

And the mountains always seemed to stand
silently on guard. They became part of one's
life. When the Small Person came out upon the
porch very early in the morning they were deep
purple and stood out soft and clear. The sun
was rising from behind a hill to the left, where
three or four very tall pine-trees seemed to have
grown with a view to adding to the spectacular
effect by outlining their feathery branches and
straight, slender stems against the pink, pearl,
amber, blue, apple-green, daffodil sky, growing
intenser every moment until the golden flood
leaped up above the tallest feathered pine. In
the middle of the day they paled into faint blue
in a haze of sunny light and heat, at sunset they
were violet with touches of deep rose. The
Small Person began to think of them as of hu-
man things. They were great human things,
with moods which changed and expressions
which came and wTent. She found herself going
to look at them at all sorts of times, at different
phases of the day or sky, to see how they looked
now ! They had so many expressions — they al-
ways seemed to be saying something — no, think-
ing something — but she did not know what. She
would have been glad to understand — but with
these too she had that instinct of kindship — of

268 The One I Knew the Best of All

somehow being part of their purple, their clear
dark outline, their dips and curves against the
sky — with these too ! The first morning that she
went out and found them covered with snow-
like ranges of piled white clouds lightly touched
with sunrise pink — she almost cried out aloud.

But it was not only the mountains — all the near
things that surrounded and shut her in were of
the same world. She began to ramble and ex-
plore, wandering about, and led on step by step
by the things she saw until it ended in her liter-
ally living in the open air.

About a hundred yards from the house was a
little thicket which was the beginning of the
woods. Sassafras, sumach, dogwood, and young
pines and cedars grew in the midst of a thick
undergrowth of blackberry -vines and bushes.
The slender but full-branched trees stood very
close together, and a wild grape-vine roofed them
with a tangled abundance.

When she found this place the Small Person
hungered to get into the very heart of it and feel
the leaves enclose her and the vine sway about
her and catch with tendrils at her hair. But that
was impossible then, because the briers and un-
dergrowth were so thick as to be impenetrable.
For some time it was a longing unattained.

It was a chance, perhaps, which caused it to be
fulfilled. Some friend of the brothers, during: a

' *>

The Dryad Days 269

visit of some holiday, was inspired to suggest
that an hour or so of vigorous cutting and prun-
ing would do wonders for this very spot, and in a
valiant moment the idea was carried out.

The Small Person lived in it for two years
after, and it was called the " Bower."

The walls of the Bower were branches and
bushes and lovely brambles, the ceiling was
boughs bearing bravely the weight of the matted
vine, the carpet of it was grass and pine-needles,
and moss. One made one's way to it through a
narrow path cleared between blackberry and wild-
rose briers, one entered as if through a gateway
between two slender sentinel sassafras-trees — and
the air one breathed inside smelled of things
subtly intoxicating — of warm pine and cedar and
grape-vine blossoms made hot by the sun.

The Small Person was never quite sober when
she lay full length on the grass and pine-needles
on a Summer day and closed her eyes, dilating
her little nostrils to inhale and sniff slowly the
breathing of these strange sweet things. She
was not aware that she was intoxicated, she only
thought she was exquisitely happy and uplifted
by a strange, still joy — better than anything else
in life — something thrillingly near being the Party.

She came to the place so much, and spent so
many hours there, lying on the grass, scribbling
a bit of a story, sewing a bit of a seam, reading,

270 The One I Knew the Best of All

when she could get a book — which was rarely-
thinking out great problems with her eyes open
or shut, and she was so quiet that the little living
things actually became accustomed to her, and
quite unafraid. It became one of her pleasures to
lie or sit and watch a bird light upon a low branch
quite near her and sway there, twittering a little
to himself and giving an occasional touch to his
feathers, as he made remarks about the place.
She would not have stirred for worlds for fear of
startling him. She used to try to imagine what
he was saying :

" Dear me ! What a charming place. So de-
lightfully fresh and cool after one has been flying
about in the hot sun. And so secluded ! Why
did not Rosiebeak think of suggesting that I
should build the nest here ? And none of those
big, walking-about creatures who don't sing-

And then, perhaps, his round, bright, dark eye
fell upon her and he made a nervous little move,
as if he were going to fly away, but seeing that
she did not stir, reflected upon her, and then she
thought he said :

" What is it? It looks like one of them, but it
does not move or make a noise, and its eyes look
friendly."

And then he would gather courage, if he was an
enterprising bird, and hop onto a nearer twig and
examine her, making quick little curious move-

77ic Dryad Days

271

ments with his head and neck. After which he
would probably fly away.

But she had an idea that he always came again
and brought some member of his family and en-
deavored to explain her to them and tell them that
his imp ression
was that she
would not hurt.
Many of them,
she was quite
sure, came

CMffiP!

¥, ,

again. She believed she recognized them. And
they became so used to seeing her that they did
not mind her in the least, and had quarrels and
reconciliations, and said unpleasant things about
their relations, and deplored the habits their
children were getting into, and practised their
scales just as if she had been one of the fam-
ily.

Squirrels had no objection to her, rabbits occa-
sionally came and looked, and dragon-flies and
beetles regarded her as of no consequence at all.

272 The One I Knew tJie Best of All

" They think I am another kind of little animal,"
she used to delight herself with thinking — " an-
other kind of squirrel or thrush or beetle, or a
new kind of rabbit they have not seen. Or per-
haps they think I am a very little cow without
horns. They don't think I am a person, and they
know I like them."

Some mornings she spent there it would be al-
most impossible to describe. The air, the odors,
the sounds of insects and birds, the golden-green
shade of the interlaced vines and branches, the
delicate shadows of the leaves, the faint rustle of
them, which only seemed to make the stillness
more still and full of meaning, wakened in her a
fine, tender ecstasy, which did not seem to be ex-
actly a feeling belonging to life on earth. She
was always alone, and she used to lie in the gold-
green shade quite motionless, with her eyes closed,
a curious, rapt fancy in her mind.

" Somehow," she used to think, " I am not quite
in my body. It is so beautiful that my soul is try-
ing to get away like a bird. It has got out of my
body and it is trying to break loose ; but it is fast-
ened with a little slender cord, and that holds it.
It is fluttering and straining: because it wants to

o o

fly."

There was even in her mind a perfectly definite
idea of how high above her body the little soul
hovered, straining to break the cord. She fancied

The Dryad Days 273

it hovering, with the movement of a poised hum-
ming-bird, about a yard above her breast- -no
higher — the slender chain was only that long.

And she used to try to make herself more and
more still, and centre all her thoughts upon the
small lifted spirit — trying to help it to break the
chain.

" If it could break it," she thought, "it would fly
away- -I don't know where — and I should be dead.
And they would come to the Bower to look for
me at night when I did not come home, and find
me lying here. And they would think it was
dreadful and be so sorry for me ; and nobody
would know that I had only died because I was so
happy that my soul broke the chain."

If in the young all things not quite of earth are
justly to be considered morbid, then this ecstasy,
too subtile to be called a mood, was a thing to be
discouraged ; but it was an emotion all of rapture,
and was a thing so delicate and strange that she
kept it silently to herself.

In the life she spent in wandering about the
woods, she became perfectly familiar with all their
resources. She was generally gathering flowers.
The little house was filled with them to overflow-
ing. Her hands were always filled as she rambled
from one place to another. She was always look-
ing for new ones, and it Avas not long before she
knew exactly the spots of earth, of dry ness or damp-

274 The One I Knew the Best of All

ness, of shade or sun, in which each one grew.
She was nearly always by herself, but she was
never alone when she was among- these intimates of
hers. She found it quite natural to speak to them,
to bend down and say caressing things to them,
to stoop and kiss them, to praise them for their
pretty ways of looking up at her as into the eyes of
a friend and beloved. There were certain little
blue violets who always seemed to lift up their
small faces childishly, as if they were saying :

" Kiss me ! Don't go by like that. Kiss me."
That was what she imagined about them.

Those were lovely da}s when she found these
violets. They were almost the very first things
that came in the Spring. First there was a good
deal of rain, and when one was getting very tired
of it there would come a lull. Perhaps it was
only a lull, and the sun only came out and went
in with capricious uncertainty. But when the
lull came the Small Person issued forth. Every-
thing was wet and smelled deliciously - - the
mould, the grass, the ferns, the trees, and bushes.
She was not afraid of the dampness. She was a
strong little thing, and wore cotton frocks. Gen-
erally she had no hat. A hat seemed unnecessary
and rather in the way. She simply roamed
about as a little sheep or cow would have roamed
about, going where an odor or a color led her.
She went through the bushes and undergrowth,

The Dryad Days 275

and as she made her way they shook rain-drops
on her. As she had not known flowers before,
and did not know people then, she did not learn
the real names of the flowers she gathered. But
she knew their faces and places and ways as she
knew her family. The very first small flower of
all was a delicate, bounteous thing-, which grew
in masses and looked like a pale forget-me-not on
a fragile stem. She loved it because it was so
ready and so free of itself, and it meant that soon
the wet grass would be blue with the violets
which she loved beyond all else of the Spring or
Summer. She always lost her head a little when
she saw the first of these small things, but when,
after a few days more rain, the sun decided to
shine with warm softness, and things were push-
ing up through the mould and bursting from the
branches and trunks of trees, and bluebirds began
to sine:, and all at once the blue violets seemed to

o '

rusk out of the earth and purple places every-
where, she became a little mad — with a madness
which was divine. She forgot she was a Small
Person with a body, and scrambled about the
woods, forgetting everything else also. She knew
nothing but the violets, the buds of things, the
leaves, the damp, sweet, fresh smell. She knelt
clown recklessly on the wet grass ; if rain began
to fall she was not driven indoors unless it fell in
torrents. To make one's way through a wood on

276 77ie One I Knew the Best of AIL

a hillside with hands full of cool, wet leaves and
flowers, and to feel soft, light, fresh rain-drops on
one's cheek is a joy — a joy !

With the violets came the blossoming: of the

dogwood trees and the wild plum — things to be
broken off in branches and carried away over
one's shoulder, like sumptuous fair banners of
white bloom. And then the peach- and apple-
blossom, and new flowers at one's feet on every
side as one walked through paths or made new
ones through the woods. As the weather became
warmer the colors became warmer with it. Then
the early mornings were spent in the flower hunt,
the heat of the day in the Bower, the evenings in
the woods again, the nights upon the porch,
looked down upon by myriads of jewels trem-
bling in the vastness of dark blue, or by a moon,
never the same or in the same setting, and always
sailing like a boat of pearl in a marvellous, mys-
terious sea.

The Small Person used to sit upon the steps of
the porch, her elbows on her knees, her hands
supporting her chin, her face upturned, staring,
staring, in the moments of silence. Something of
the feeling she had had when she lay upon her
back on the grass in the Back Garden of Eden al-
ways came back to her when she began to look up
at the sky. Though it was so high — so high, so
unattainable, yet this too was a world. Was she

The Dryad Days 277

part of it too, as she was part of the growing
things and the world they belonged to? She was
not sure of that, but there was a link somewhere —
she was something to it all — somehow ! In some
unknown way she counted as soinctJiing among
the myriads in the dark, vast blueness — perhaps
for as much as a point of the tiniest star. She
knew she could not understand, that she was be-
yond the things understandable, when she had
this weird updrawn, overwhelming feeling, and
sat with her chin upon her hands and stared — and
stared — and stared so fixedly and with such inten-
sity, that the earth seemed gone — left far behind.
There was not a season of the year, an hour of
the day which was not a w^onderful and beautiful
thing. In the winter there was the snow, the
clear, sharp air, which seemed actually to sparkle,
the rose and violet shadows on the mountains,
the strange, lurid sunsets, with crimsons and scar-
lets and pale yellows, burning the summits of pur-
ple banks of cloud ; there was the crisp sound of
one's feet treading the hardened snow, the green
of the pines looking emerald against the white-
ness, the bare tree-tops gray or black against the
sky, and making the blue intenser ; there were the
little brown rabbits appearing with cautious hops,
and poised, sniffing with tremulous noses, their
large eyes and alert ears alarming them at a
breath of sound to a wild skurry and disappear-

278 The One I Knew the Best of All

ance into space itself. The rabbits were a de-
lightful feature. The Small Person never was
able to become intimate with them to the extent
of being upon speaking terms. They would come
to the Bower and peep at her in the Summer, but
in the Winter they always disappeared with that
lightning rapidity when they heard her. And yet
if they had known her she was conscious that
they would have recognized their mistake. She
had always deplored seeing them suspended by
their hind legs in the poulterers' shops in Man-
chester. They looked so soft, and their dulled
eyes seemed so piteous.

The Spring was the creation of the world — the
mysterious, radiant, young beginning of living.
There were the violets and dogwood blossoms,
and every day new life. In the summer there
was the Bower, and the roses, and the bees, and
the warm, aromatic smells in the air. In the
Autumn a new thing came, and she seemed to
have drunk something heady again.

The first Autumn in America was a wondrous
thing to her. She existed from day to day in a
sort of breathless state of incredulity. In Man-
chester, the leaves on the trees in the public park,
being rained upon until they became sodden and
brown, dropped off dispirited, and life Avas at an
end. Even poetry and imaginative prose only
spoke of " Autumn's russet brown."

77/6' Dryad Days 279

But here marvels happened. After a few hot
days and cool nights, the greenery of the Bower
began to look strangely golden. As she lay under
her prettiest sassafras - tree, the Small Person
found, when she looked up, that something was
happening to its leaves. They were still fresh,
and waved and rustled, but they were turning
pale yellow. Some of them had veins and flushes
of rose on them. She gathered some and looked
at them closely. They were like the petals of
flowers. A few more hot days and cool nights
and there were other colors. The maple was
growing yellow and red, the dogwood was crim-
son, the sumach \vas like blood, the chestnut was
pale gold, and so was the poplar — the trailing
brambles were painted as if with a brush. The
Small Person could not believe her eyes, as she
saw what, each day, went on around her. It
seemed like a brilliant dream, or some exaggera-
tion of her senses.

" It can't really be as scarlet as that when one
holds it in one's hand," she used to say at sight of
some high-hued, flauntingly lovely spray.

And she would stand upon her tiptoes, and
stretch, and struggle to reach it, and stand pant-
ing and flushed, but triumphant, with it in her
hand, finding it as brilliant as it had seemed.

She began to gather leaves as she had gathered
flowers, and went about with bowers of branches,

2 So The One I Knew the Best of All

flaming and crimson, in her arms. She made
wreaths of sumach and maple leaves, and wore
them on her head, and put bunches in her little
belt, and roamed about all day in this splendor,
feeling flaunting and inclined to sing. Again, she
did not know that she was not sober, and that,
as Bacchantes of old wore wreaths of vine-leaves
and reeled a little with the blood of the new
grapes, so she was reeling a little with an exulta-
tion beautiful and strange.

There was a certain hollow in a little woodland
road she loitered about a great deal, where there
was a view which had always a deep effect upon
her.

It was not an imposing view, it was a soft and
dreamy one. The little road ran between woods
and pretty wild places, to a higher land clothed
with forest. The lovely rolling wave of it
seemed to shut in the world she looked at when
she stood in the little dip of the road, with wood
on both sides and the mountains behind her.

When all the land was aflame with Autumn,
and she sat on Indian Summer afternoons upon a
certain large lichen-covered log, she used to gaze,
dreaming, at the massed tree plumes of scarlet
and crimson and gold uplifted against the blue
sky, and softened with a faint, ethereal haze, until
she had strange unearthly fancies of this too.

" A place might open in the blue," she used to

The Dryad Days 281

say softly to herself. " It might open at any
moment — now — while I am sitting here. And
They might come floating over the trees. They
would float, and look like faint, white mist at first.
And if the place in the blue were left open, I
might see ! '

And at such times all was so still — so still and
wonderful, that she used to find herself sitting

breathless, waiting.

There were many memories of this hollow
woodland path. So many flowers grew there,
and there were always doves making soft mur-
murs and most tender, lovelorn plaints, high in
the pines' far tops. She used to stand and listen
to their cooing, loving it, and in her young, she-
dove's heart plaining with them, she did not know
or ask why.

And there, more than one rainy autumn day,
she came and stood with her boughs in her arms,
watching the misty rain veiling the sumptuous
colors of the wooded hill, feeling, with a kind of
joyful pleasure, the light-falling drops caressing
her from her red leaf-wreaths to her damp feet,
which mattered absolutely nothing. How could
the wet grass she seemed to have sprung from
earth with, the fresh cool rain she loved, hurt
her, a young, young Dryad, in these her Dryad
days ?

How many times it befell her to follow this road

282 The One I Knew the Best of All

-sometimes running fast, sometimes stealing
softly, sometimes breaking away from it to plunge
into the wood and run again until she stopped to
listen, looking up into some tree, or peering into
a thicket or bush.

This was when she was giving herself up to
what she called " the bird chases." She liked
them so — the birds. She knew nothing of them.
Birds such as the woods hold had not lived in the
Square. There had been only serious -minded
little sparrows nesting in the chimneys and in the
gutterings. They brought up large families un-
der the shadows of water-piping, and taught them
to fly on the wet slates. They were grateful for
crumbs, particularly in snowy weather, and the
Nursery patronized them. But they were not
bluebirds with a brief little trill of Spring carolled
persistently from all sorts of boughs and fence
corners ; they were not scarlet birds with black
velvet marks and crests ; they were not yellow
birds like stray canaries, or chattering jays, or
mocking-birds writh the songs of all the woods in

o o

their throats ; they were not thrushes and wrens,
or woodpeckers drumming and tapping in that
curiously human way.

As there had been no one to tell her the actual
names of the flowers, so there was no one to tell
her the real names of the birds. She used to ask
the negroes who lived at the foot of Mount Ara-

The Dryad Days 283

rat, but the result was so unsatisfactory that she
gave it up.

" What is that little bird that sings like this,
Aunt Cynthy?' she would say, trying to imitate
its note. " It is a little blue thing."

" That's the bluebird," seemed rather incom-
plete to her at the outset.

" And the bright red one with the black marks
and crest?'

" That's the redbird," which did not seem much
more definite.

" I can sec they are blue and red," she used to
say. " Haven't they a name ? '

But they had no other name, and when the
birds described were less marked in color there
seemed to be no names at all. So she began to
commit the birds to memory, learning their notes
and colors and forms by heart. In this way were
instituted the bird chases.

If she heard a new song or note she ran after it
until she saw the bird and could watch him pip-
ing or singing. It was very interesting and led
her many a mile.

Sometimes she believed birds came and sang
near her, under cover, for the mere fun of leading
her through the woods. They would begin on a
tree near by and then fly away and seem to hide
again until she followed them. She always fol-
lowed until she caught sight, of her bird. But

284 The One I Knew the Best of All

they had wonderful ways of eluding her, and led
her over hill and dale, and through thicket and
brambles, and even then sometimes got away.

There was one with a yellow breast and a
queer little cry which she pursued lor several
days, but she saw him at last and afterward be-
came quite familiar with him. And there was
one, who was always one of two — a tender, sad
little thing who could never be alone, and who
was always an unanswered problem to her, and
somehow, above all, her best beloved. It was a
mystery because no one ever seemed to have seen
it but herself, and her description of it was never
recognized.

It was a little bird — a tiny one, a soft, small,
rounded one, with a black velvet cap, and on its
first appearance it came and sat upon the rail of
the veranda, and waited there, uttering a piteous
little note. She knew that it was waiting and
was calling to its mate because it was a timid lit-
tle thing, existing only under the cover of his
wing and love. He could only be a small creat-
ure himself, but the Small Person felt that in the
round, bright, timid eyes he was a refuge from the
whole large world, the brief, soft, plaintive cry for
him was so pathetically trustful in its appealing.

The Small Person, who was sitting on the
wooden steps, was afraid to stir for fear of fright-
ening her.

The Dryad Days 285

" You poor little mite," she murmured, " don't
be so sorrowful. He'll come directly."

And when he did come and was lovingly re-
joiced over, and the tiny pair flew away together,
she was quite relieved.

There was something in the brief, plaintive note
which always led her to follow it when she heard
it afterward, which only happened at rare inter-
vals. There seemed to be some sad little ques-
tion or story in it which she could not help wish-
ing she could understand. But she never did,
though each time she heard the sound she ran to
look for it, and stood beneath its tree looking up
with a sense of a persistent question in her own
breast. What was it about? What did it want?
What was it sad for? She never heard the tiny
thing without finding it huddled down patiently
upon some bough or spray, calling for its mate.
And to her it never had any other name than the
one she s^ave it of " The little mournful bird."

These Dryad days were of the first years of her
teens. They were the early Spring of her young
life. And she was in Love — in Love with morn-
ing, noon, and night; with Spring and Summer
and Winter ; with leaves and roots and trees ;
with rain and dew and sun ; with shadows and
odors and winds ; with all the little living things ;
with the rapture of being and unknowingness and
mere Life — with the whole World.

CHAPTER XV.

My Object is Remuneration

SHE always felt herself under a personal obli-
gation to Christopher Columbus. The years in
which came the Dryacl days would have been
very different if they had been spent in the
Square or within reach of it. Reduced resources
in a great town or city where one has lived al-
ways, mean change of habits and surroundings,
shabbiness, anxiety, and annoyance. They mean
depression and dreariness, loss of courage, and
petty humiliations without end. In a foreign
land among mountains and forests they mean se-
clusion, freedom, and novelty. It is novelty to
live in a tiny white house, to wait upon one's self
and everyone else, to wear a cotton frock and
chase birds through the woods without the en-

cuinbrances of hats and gloves and parasols. It
is also freedom. But in Dryad days lived in an
unsylvan age a serious reduction of resources is
felt. Detail seems unnecessary, but, without en-
tering into detail, it may be stated that this re-
duction of resource was felt on the summit of
Mount Ararat. Alas ! one cannot live always in

Object is Remuneration' 287

the Bower, one must come home to dinner and to
bed. Material and painful but unavoidable. Even
cotton frocks wear out and must be washed. And
the openings for the Boys had not been of suf-
ficient size to allow of their passing through to
ease and fortune. The consequences were curi-
ous sometimes and rather trying.

" We are decayed ladies and gentlemen," the
Small Person used to say to herself. " We ought
to be living in a ruined feudal castle and have

ancient servitors who refuse to leave us and will
not take any wages. But it is not at all like that."
It was not at all.

It was so very unlike it that there were occa-
sions when she gathered her leaves and flowers
with a thoughtful little frown on her forehead,
and when she talked the matter over with Edith
or Mamma. Edith was the practical member of
the family.

" If one could do something ! " she said, thought-
fully.

But there are so few things to do if one is very
young and quite inexperienced and lives on the
top of Mount Ararat.

Still the serious necessity increased and she
pondered over it more and more.

" I wish I could do something," she said next.
She began to have long discussions with Edith as
to what one might invent as a means of resource

283 The One I Knew the Best of AIL

-what one could teach or learn — or make. But
nothing proved practicable.

There was a queer little room with unfinished
walls and rafters where she had a table by a win-
dow and wrote stories in wet or cold weather when

the Bower was out of the question. There was no
fireplace and she used to sit wrapped in a shawl
for warmth. She had a little cat which always
followed her and jumped upon the table when she
sat down, curling up in the curve of her left arm.
The little cat's name was Dora, and it was also a

"My Object is Remuneration' 289

Small Person. It had a clearly defined character,
and understood that it was assisting in literary
efforts. It also added to the warmth the shawl
gave. Edith used to come upstairs to the rough
little room and talk to her, and gradually she got
into the habit of reading to her pieces of the
stories. She began with extracts - - speeches,
scenes, chapters — and led on by the delight of her
audience, which was stimulating as that of the
Listeners, she read all she wrote.

Edith was a delightful listener. She was an
emotional little being, and exquisitely ready with
tears, and uncontrolled in laughter. She was at
the same time a remarkable Small Person and sin-
gularly perceptive.

They used to sit and talk over the stories — telling
each other what they liked best or were not quite
sure of. The Small Person had a curious feeling
that in reading to Edith she was submitting her
creations to a sort of infallible critic — one who was
infallible not through experience or training, but
through a certain unfailing truth of sentiment and
emotion, and an unfaltering good taste. It must
be recorded, however, that neither of them for a
moment contemplated the chance of a larger pub-
lic existing for the stories. Never for an instant
had it occurred to the Small Person that they were
worth publishing. That would have seemed to
her a height of presumption quite grotesque.
19

290 The One I Knezv the Best of AIL

They were hidden from the Boys as carefully as
ever, and derided as mercilessly when they were
mentioned by them. " Frances's love stories '
were an unfailing source of jocular entertainment.
It was never ill-natured entertainment, and there
was plenty of rough young wit in it ; but naturally
a young Briton finds it rather a lark to contem-
plate the thought of a small girl he has chaffed and
patronized all his life secreting herself to write
pages of romantic description of the emotions of
" a case of spoons." The Boys were fond of her,
and their intercourse was marked by bounteous
good-nature and the best of tempers and spirits,
but their impression naturally was that the stories
would be " bosh." But she continued to write
them — with the little cat curled in her left arm-
and read them to Edith. It was the " Answers
to Correspondents " in various magazines which
inspired her with her tremendously daring
thought. Things like these :

" Elaine the Fair.- -Your story has merit, but is
not quite suited to our columns. Never write on
both sides of your paper."

" ChristabeL- -We do not return rejected manu-
script unless stamps are enlosed for postage."

" Blair of Athol.--We accept your poem, ' The
Knight's Token.' Shall be glad to hear from you
again."

She read them on the final pages of Godeys

"My Object is Remuneration' 291

Ladys Book and Peterson's Magazine, etc. Her
circumstances were not sufficiently princely to
admit of her being among the subscribers, but oc-
casionally a copy or so drifted in her way. They
were much read at that time in the locality.

She was reading these absorbing replies to the
correspondents one day when a thought floated
into her mind, and after a few moments of indefi-
niteness took shape and presented itself before
her. She blushed a little at first because it had
such an air of boldness. She rather thrust it
aside, but after a while she found herself con-
templating it — as if from afar off.

" I wonder how much they pay for the stories
in magazines," she said, reflectively, to Edith.

Edith did not know, naturally, and had not
formed any opinion.

" I wonder if they pay much," the Small Per-
son continued ; " and — what sort of people write
them?" It seemed impossible that ordinary,
every-day people could write things that would
be considered worth paying for and publishing in
magazines. It seemed to imply immense talents
and cultivation and training and enormous dignity.

She did not think this because she found the
stories invariably brilliant, but because she felt
that there must be some merit she was not clever
enough to detect ; if not they would never have
been published.

292 The One I Knew the Best of All

" Sometimes they are not so awfully clever,"
she said.

" Well," said Edith, boldly, " I've seen lots of
them not half as nice as yours."

" Ah ! ' she exclaimed, conscious of being beset
by her sheepish feeling ; u that's because you are
my sister."

" No, it isn't," said the valiant Edith, with her
favorite little pucker of her forehead. " I don't
care whether I'm your sister or not. Some of
your stories are beautiful ! '

The Small Person blushed, because she was of
the Small Persons who are given to superfluous
blushing. u I wonder," she said, " if the maga-
zine people would think so."

" I don't know anything about magazine peo-
ple," said Edith ; " but I don't see why they
shouldn't think so."

" They wouldn't," said the Small Person, with
a sudden sense of discouragement. " Of course
they wouldn't."

But she could not help the thought of the an-
swered correspondents returning to her after-
ward. She found herself wondering about them
as she rambled through the woods or lay on the
grass in the Bower. How did they send their
stories to the magazines ? Was it by post or
by express? If it was by post how many stamps
would it take ? How could one find out ? It

< i

My Object is Remuneration ' 293

would be important that one should put on
enough. She remembered " answers ' such as
this: "March Hare.--We cannot receive MSS.
on which insufficient postage has been paid." It
was evidently necessary to make a point of the
postage.

Then there was the paper. To meet the ap-
proval of an august being it seemed as if some-
thing special must be required. And more than
once she had read instructions of such a nature
as: " Airy, Fairy Lilian. --Write in a clear hand
on ordinary foolscap paper."

She was only fifteen, and her life had been
spent between the Square and the Bower. Her
horizon had not been a broad one, and had not
embraced practical things. She had had no per-
sonal acquaintance with Ordinary Foolscap. If
the statement had demanded extraordinary fools-
cap she would have felt it only natural.

Somehow she found a timid, but growing in-
terest in the whole subject. She could not quite
get away from it. And when circumstances oc-
curred which directed her attention specially to
the results of the reduced resources she was led
to dwell on it with a certain sense of fascination.

" Something must be done ! ' she said to her-
self, desperately. " We can't go on like this.
Someone must do something."

The three little girls talked together at times

294 The One I Knew the Best of All

quite gloomily. They all agreed that Somebody
must do something. The Boys were doing their
best, but luck did not seem to be with them.

44 Something must be done," the Small Person
kept repeating.

" Yes," replied Edith, " but what must it be and
Who will do it?"

The people whose stories were bought and
printed must some time have sent their first
stories. And they could not have known whether
they were really good or not until they had asked
and found out. The only way of finding out was
to send one — written in a clear hand on one side of
ordinary foolscap — having first made quite sure
that it had stamps enough on it. If a person had
the courage to do that, he or she would at least
hear if it was worth reading — if a stamp was en-
closed.

These were the reflections with which the Small
Person's mind was occupied.

And if it was worth reading — if the August Be-
ing deigned to think it so — and was not rendered
rabid and infuriate by insufficient postage, or in-
distinct writing, or by having to read on both
sides of the ordinary foolscap, if he was in need
of stories for his magazine, and if he was in a good
temper he might accept it — and buy it.

If the Listeners had liked her stories so much,
if Edith and Edwina liked them, if Edith thought

i >

My Object is Remuneration ' 295

they were as nice as some she had read in Godeys
Ladys Book, might it not be just possible that-
that an Editor might deign to read one and per-
haps even say that it " had merit," even if it was
not good enough to buy. If he said that much,
she could study the stones in the Ladys Book,
etc., assiduously enough, perhaps, to learn the se-
cret of their success, and finally do something
which might be worthy to compete with them.

She was a perfectly unassuming child. She had
never had any feeling about her story-telling but
that it seemed part of herself- -something she
could not help doing. Secretly she had been
afraid, as time went by, that she had been Ro-
mantic with the Doll, and in private she was
afraid that she was Romantic about the stories.
The idea that anyone but the Listeners and Edith
and Edwina would be likely to care to hear or
read them had never entered her mind. The
cheerful derision of the Boys added to her sensi-
tive shyness about them, and upon the whole she
regarded her little idiosyncrasy as a thing to be
kept rather quiet. Nothing but actual stress ot
circumstances would have spurred her to the
boldness of daring to hope for them. But in
those days Noah's Ark found itself lacking such
common things — things which could not be dis-
pensed with even by the most decayed of ladies
and gentlemen.

296 The One I Knew the Best of All

So one day after many mental struggles she
found herself sitting with Edith and the little
cat, in the small room with the bare walls and
rafters. And she gathered her courage in both
hands.

" Edith," she said, " I've been thinking about
something."

Edith looked at her with interest. She was a
lovely little person and a wonderful friend for her
years — which were thirteen.

"What is it?" she said.

" Do you think — do you think it would be silly
to send one of my stories — to a magazine — and
see if they would take it ? '

I cannot help believing that at the first moment
Edith rather lost her breath. The two were Eng-
lish children, brought up in a simple English nurs-
ery in the most primitively conventional way.
Such a life is not conducive to a spirit of bold-
ness and enterprise. In matters of point of view
they would have seemed to the American mind
incredibly young for their years. If they had
been American children they would have been
immensely cooler and far less inclined to ultra-
respectful attitudes toward authority.

" Do you ? " said the Small Person. " Do you ? '

Edith gathered herself together also. Across
a lifetime the picture of her small face rises with
perfect distinctness. She was a fair little person,

^^^ Object is Remuneration ' 297

with much curling blond hair and an expressive
little forehead which had a habit of puckering it-
self. She was still startled, but she bore herself
with a courage which was heroic.

" No," she answered, " I don't ! "

If she had said that she did, the matter might
have ended there, but as it was, the Small Person
breathed again. She felt the matter might be
contemplated and approached more nearly. One
might venture at least to talk about it in private.

" I have been thinking and thinking about it,"
she said. " Even if they are not good enough to
be published it would not do any harm just to
try. They can only be sent back — and then I
should know. Do you think we dare do it?"

" If I were you I would," said Edith.

" I believe," hesitated the Small Person, " I do
believe I will."

Edith began to become excited.

" Oh," she said, " I think it would be splendid !
What would you send ? '

" I should have to write something new. I
haven't anything ready that I should care to
send. I'd write something carefully- -just as well
as I could. There's a story I began to write when
we lived in the Square, three years ago. I never
finished it, and I only wrote scenes out of it in
old account-books ; but I remember what it was
about, and the other day I found an old book

298 The One I Knew the Best of AIL

with some scraps of it in. And I really do think
it's rather nice. And I might finish it, perhaps."
She began to tell the story, and became exhila-
rated with the telling, as she always did, and
Edith thought it an enchanting story, and so it
was decided that it should be finished and put to
the test.

" But there's one thing," she said, " I would not
have the Boys know for anything in the world.
They would laugh so, and they would think it
such a joke if it was sent back again. I'm going
to put in stamps to send it back with, because if
you put on stamps enough they will send it back.
And perhaps they wouldn't take the trouble to
write a letter if the)7 didn't like it and I didn't
send the extra stamps. You often see in maga-
zines a notice that manuscript will be returned if
stamps are sent. So in that way I shall be sure
to find out. But I must get them without the
Boys knowing."

" Yes, you must," said Edith. " They would
tease you so if it came back. But what are you
going to do? You know there isn't any money
now but what the Boys get. And that's little
enough, goodness knows."

" We shall have to think about it," said the
Small Person, " and contrive. It will take a good
deal of contriving, but I have to write the story
first."

"My Object is Remuneration' 299

"Do you think it will take many stamps?"
asked Edith, beginning to pucker her expressive
little forehead, anxiously.

"Yes, a good many, I'm afraid," was the Small
Person's answer. " And then we have to buy the
foolscap paper — ordinary foolscap. But of all
things promise and swear you won't breathe a
word before the Boys."

It was a marvel that they did not betray them-
selves in some way. It was so thrilling a secret.
While the story was being written they could
think and talk of nothing else. The Small Person
used to come down from the raftered Temple of
the Muses with her little cat under her arm, and
her cheeks a blaze of scarlet. The more absorbed
and interested she was the more brilliant her
cheeks were.

" How red your cheeks are, my dear," Mamma
would say. " Does your head ache ? '

But her head did not ache, though it would
have done, if she had not been a splendidly strong
little animal.

" I always know when you've been writing very
fast," Edith used to say ; " your cheeks always
look so flaming red."

It was not long, of course, before Mamma was
taken into confidence. What she thought it
would be difficult to say, but she was lovable
and sustaining as usual.

300 The One I Knew the Best of All

" It won't do any harm to try, dear," she said.
" It seems to me you write very nice things, for
one so young, and perhaps some of the edi-
tors might like them ; and, of course, it would
be a great help if they would pay you a little
money."

" But the Boys mustn't know one word," said
the Small Person. " I'll tell them if it's accepted,
but if it isn't, I'd rather be dead than that they
should find out."

And so the story went on, and it was read
aloud under the rafters, and Edith revelled in it,
and the little cat lay curled up in the Small Per-
son's left arm, quite undisturbed by the excite-
ment in the atmosphere around her. And as
the work went on the two plotters discussed and
planned and contrived.

First, how to get the ordinary foolscap to
copy out the manuscript in a beautiful clear
hand ; next, how to get the address of the Editor
to be approached ; next, how to address him ;
next, how to find out how many stamps would
be necessary to carry the fateful package and
bring it back, if such was to be its doom.

It had all to be done in such secrecy and with
such precautions. To walk to town and back
was a matter of two or three hours, and the Boys
would wonder if they did not hear why a journey
had been made. They always saw the person

"My Object is Remuneration* 301

who went to town. Consequently no member of
the household could go without attracting atten-
tion. So some outsider must be found who'could
make the journey to visit a book-store and find
the address required. It would have been all so
simple if it had not been for the Boys.

But by the time the story was finished an ac-
quaintance who lived on a neighboring farm had
procured the address and some information about
the stamps, though this last could not be applied
very definitely, as the weight of the package
could only be guessed at, in the absence of letter-
scales.

The practical views of the Small Person at
this crisis impress me greatly. They were so
incompatible with her usual vagueness and ro-
mancings that they strike me as rather deliciously
incongruous.

" I must have the right kind of paper," she
argued, " because if I sent something that seemed
queer to them they would think me silly to begin
with. And I must write it very plainly, so that
it will be easy to read, and on only one side, be-
cause if they are bothered by anything it will
make them feel cross and they will hate me, and
hate my story too. Then, as to the letter I send
with it, I must be very careful about that. Of
course they have a great many such letters and
they must be tired of reading them. So I must

302 The One I Knew the Best of All

make it very short. I would send it without a
letter, but I must make them understand that I
want it sent back if they don't like it, and call
their attention to the stamps and let them know
I am doing it for money and not just for the fun
of getting the story published."

"How will you tell them that?' asked Edith,
a trifle alarmed. It seemed so appalling and in-
delicate to explain to an Editor that you wanted
money.

The Small Person felt the same thing. She
felt this sordid mention of an expectation of re-
ceiving dollars and cents in return for her work
a rather gross thing — a bold thing which might
cause the Editor to receive a severe shock and
regard her with cold disgust as a brazen Small
Person. Upon the whole, it was the most awful
part of the situation. But there was no help for
it. Having put her hand to the plough she could
not turn back, or trifle with the chance that the
Editor might think her a well-to-do Small Person,
who did not write stories for publication through
sheer need, but for amusement.

" I shall have to think that over," she said, seri-
ously. " I don't want to offend them, of course,
but I must tell them that ! "

If it were possible to depict in sufficiently
strong colors her mental impressions of the man-
ners, idiosyncrasies, and powers of an Editor, the

' My Object is Remuneration ' 303

picture would be an interesting one. It was an
impression so founded upon respect and un-
bounded awe. Between an utterly insignificant
little girl in the mountains of East Tennessee and
an Editor in a princely official apartment in Phil-
adelphia or New York, invested by Fate with
the power to crush people to the earth and re-
duce them to impalpable dust by refusing their
manuscripts — or to raise them to dizziest pin-
nacles of bliss by accepting them — there was a
gulf imagination could not cross. Buddha him-
self, sitting in rapt passiveness with folded hands
and down-dropped lids, was not so marvellous or
so final. Editors presented themselves to her as
representing a distinct superhuman race. It
seemed impossible that they were moved by the
ordinary emotions and passions of mankind.
Why she was pervaded with a timorousness, with
regard to them, which only Mad Bulls or Tigers
with hydrophobia would have justified, it is not
easy to explain. Somehow the picture of an Edi-
tor rendered infuriate — " gone must" as it were-
in consequence of an inadequacy of stamps, or a
fault in punctuation, or as a result of indistinct
handwriting covering both sides of the ordinary
foolscap, was a thing which haunted both her
waking and sleeping hours. He would return
the manuscript with withering comment, or per-
haps not return it at all, and keep all the stamps,

304 The One I Kneiv the Best of AIL

which might be considered perfectly proper for
an Editor if one broke his Mede and Persian
laws. Such a being as this must be approached
with salaams and genuflections, and forehead
touching the dust.

Poor, little, anxious girl ; I find her — rather
touching at this distance — sitting in her raftered
room, scribbling hotly, with her little cat in her
arm, and her cheeks like scarlet flame. But she
could not write the explanatory letter to the Edi-
tor until she had got the money to buy the paper
to copy the story and the stamps to send it. And
how to do this without applying to the Boys ?
The rafters and the little cat presided over hours
of planning and discussion. What could be
done.

" If we could make some money ourselves,"
said the Small Person, mournfully.

" But we can't," said Edith. " We've tried, you
know."

" Yes," said the Small Person. " Embroidery-
and people don't want it. Music lessons — peo-
ple think I'm too young. Chickens — and they
wouldn't hatch, and when they did they died of
the gapes ; besides the bother of having to sit on
the hen to make her sit on the nest, and live
at full speed round the yard chasing them back
into the coops when they get through holes.
Out of all that setting of goose-eggs only one

"My Object is Remuneration' 305

hatched, and that wasn't a goose — it was a
gander — and a plank fell on it and killed it."

They both indulged in a rueful giggle. The
poultry-raising episode had been a very trying
and exciting one.

" If we had something to sell," she went on.

" We haven't," said Edith.

The Story touched the Small Person sadly on
the shoulder.

" It would be awfully mournful," she said, " if I
really could write stories that people would like-
and if I could sell them and get money enough to
make us quite comfortable — if all that good fort-
une was in me — and I never found it out all my
life — just because I can't buy some paper and pos-
tage-stamps."

It seemed too tragic. They sat and looked at
each other in gloom. The conversation ended
after a short time in desperate discouragement,
and the Small Person was obliged to wander out
to her hollow on the woodland road and stand for
a long time looking at the changing trees, listen-
ing with a strange feeling to the sorrowful plain-
ing of the doves on the tops of the pine-trees.

As the leaves were changing then, it cannot
have been very long before the inspiration came
which solved the problem. Who gave the in-
formation which gave rise to it is not a detail
which anyone can remember. Something- or
20

06 The One I Kneiv the Best of Ait

other makes it seem probable that it was Edwina,
who came into the writing-room one day and sat
down, saying, a propos of nothing in particular:

" Aunt Cynthy's two girls made a dollar yester-
day by selling wild grapes in the market. They
got them in the woods over the hill."

"Which hill?" asked the Small Person.

" The hill near the house — the one you can see
out of the window. They say there are plenty
there."

" Are there ? " said the Small Person.

" 1 wonder how much they got a gallon ? " said
Edith.

" I don't know," said Edwina. " But they sold
a dollar's worth, and they say they are going to
gather more."

" Edith ! " exclaimed the Small Person, " Edith ! "
A brilliant idea had come to her. She felt her
cheeks grow hot.

" Suppose," she said, " suppose we went and
gathered some — a whole lot — and suppose we
gave the girls part of the money to sell them for
us in the market — perhaps we should get enough
to buy the stamps and paper."

It seemed an inspiration of the gods. It was as
if some divine chance had been given to them.
Edith and Edwina clapped their hands. If wild
grapes had been sold they would sell again ; if the
woods were full of them why should they not

"My Object is Remuneration' 307

gather them — quarts, gallons, bucketfuls of them
—as many as necessity required.

There arose an excited, joyous gabbling at
once. It would be delightful. It would be fun
in itself. It would be like going gypsying. And
if there were really a great many grapes, they
might be sold for more money than would pay
for the stamps.

" It's a good thing we are not living in the
Square now," said the Small Person. " We
couldn't go and gather wild grapes in Back Syd-
ney Street."

Suddenly they felt rich and hopeful, //"they
found grapes enough — if they were sold — z/the
Editor was in a benign humor, who could tell
what might happen.

" If they buy this one," said the Small Person,
" I can write others, and perhaps they will buy
those too. I can always make up stories.
Wouldn't it be queer if it turned out that was the
thing I have to do. You know how we have
kept saying, l Something must be done.' Oh !
Edith, wouldn't it be beautiful ! '

" Of course it would be beautiful," answered
Edith.

" Perhaps," sighed the Small Person, " it is too
nice to be true. But we'll go and get the wild
grapes."

And so they did.

308 The One I Knew the Best of All

It was Edith who arranged the detail. She
saw the little mulatto girls and talked with them.
They were greatly pleased at the idea of selling
the grapes. They would pilot the party to places
where they believed there were vines, and they
would help in the gathering, themselves. The
expedition began to wear the air of an exhilarat-
ing escapade.

It would have been a delightful thing to do,
even if it had been arranged merely as a holiday.
They issued forth to conquer in the wildest spir-
its. Each one carried a tin bucket, and each
wore a cotton frock, and a sun-bonnet or a utili-
tarian straw hat. The sun was rather hot, but
the day was a golden one. There was gold in
the trees, gold in the air, gold in the distances.
The speculators had no decorum in their method.
They chased about the warm, yellowing woods
like wild things. They laughed and shouted to
each other when they scrambled apart. They
forced their way through undergrowth, and tore
their way through brambles ; they clambered
over great logs; they uttered wild little shrieks
at false alarms of snakes ; they shouted with joy
when they came upon vines; they filled their
buckets, and ate grapes to repletion, and swung
on the rope like vines themselves.

The Small Person had never been less sober.
At intervals she roamed awav a little, and stood

My Object is Remuneration ' 309

in some warm, golden place, with young trees
and bushes closed about her, simply breathing
the air, and enraptured with a feeling of being

mmmv>. -/,

ar^f. tipf 'if!' 1 m> wm'~~-<w< J •t-Zg&'Z, '• '•-' •

like a well-
sunned In-
dian peach.
Her cheeks
had such an
Autumn heat in
them- -that glow
which is not like the heat
of summer. And what a

day of dreams. If — if — if! " If" is such a charm-
ing word — such a benign one — such a sumptuous
one. One cannot always say with entire sense of
conviction, " I have a kingdom and a princely

3io The Otie I Knew the Best of All

fortune, and 1 will build a palace of gold ' -but
who cannot say, " If I had a kingdom and the fort-
une of a prince, I would build a palace of gold."
The golden palace rises fair, and one almost hears
the courtiers speak. "If gives a shadow, the
substance of which would be a poorer thing.

She built her palaces that day, and furnished
them, and lived in them, as she searched for her
wild grapes. They were innocent palaces, and
small ones, for she was a very young and vague
thing; but they were things of light and love and
beauty, and filled with the diaphanous forms of
the beliefs and dreams only such young palaces
can hold.

The party went home at sunset with its tin
pails full to the brim and covered with fresh vine-
leaves.

" We shall get two or three dollars fer these,"
said one of the pilots. " Me an' Ser'phine didn't
have nigh onto as many that other time."

" Now if they sell them," said Edith and the
Small Person when they got home, " we shall
have the paper and the postage-stamps."

It seems to be regretted that the amount they
sold for cannot be recalled — but it was enough to
buy the postage-stamps and paper and pay all
expenses, and even leave something over. The
business part of the speculation was a complete
success.

"My Object is Remuneration' 311

With what care the ordinary foolscap was
chosen ; with what discreet precautions that it
should be of the right size and shade, and should
not enrage the Editor the instant he saw it. How
large and round and clear each letter was made in
the copying. An Editor who was afflicted with
cataract might have read it half-way across his
.palatial sanctum. And then the letter that was
written to accompany the venture ! How it was
reflected upon, and reasoned about, and discussed !
" An Editor does not want to know anything about
me" the Small Person said. " He does not know
me, and he doesn't care about me, and he won't
want to be bothered. I shall just say I have en-
closed the stamps to send the manuscript back
with, if he does not want it. And I shall have to
speak about the money. You see, Edith, if the
stories are worth writing, they must be worth
reading, and if they are worth printing and read-
ing they must be worth paying for, and if they are
not worth publishing and reading they are not
worth writing, and I had better not waste my time
on them." Whence this clear and practical point
of view it would be difficult to say. But she was
quite definite about it. The urgency of the situa-
tion had made her definite. Perhaps at a crisis
she became practical — but it was only at a crisis.

And after serious deliberation and. much re writ-
ins: and elimination the following1 concise and un-

o o

312 The One I Knew the Best of All

mistakable epistle was enclosed in a roll of manu-
script with enough extra stamps to have remailed
an Editor :

44 SIR : 1 enclose stamps for the return of the
accompanying MS., * Miss Desborough's Difficul-
ties,' if you do not find it suitable for publication
in your magazine. My object is remuneration.

" Yours Respectfully,

" F. HODGSON."

This was all except the address, which was that
of the post-office of the neighboring town. Both
Edith and herself were extremely proud of the
closing sentence. It sounded so business-like.
And no Editor could mistake it. And if this one
was offended it positively could not be helped.

" And it's true," she said. " I never should have
dreamed of sending a thing to an Editor if I hadn't
been obliged to. My object is remuneration."

And then they could not help breaking into
childish giggles at the comical aspect of their hav-
ing done a thing so bold, and their ideas of what
the Editor would think if he could see the two
curly and innocent Small Persons who had written
that unflinchingly mercenary sentence.

CHAPTER XVI.

And So Skc Did

IT is a simple enough matter to send a story
with a serene mind to Editors one knows, and of
whom one is aware that they possess the fine in-
tellectual acumen which leads them to appreciate
the boon bestowed upon them, and the firmness to
contemplate with some composure the fact that
one's " object is remuneration." But it is quite a
different affair to send one's timid and defenceless
first-born into the cave of an unknown dragon,
whose fangs may be dripping with the blood of
such innocents.

Oh, the counting of the hours which elapse be-
fore it reaches its destination, and the awful thrill
of realizing that perhaps at the very hour one is
living through, the Editor is Reading it ! The
Small Person did not lose any quakings or heart-
beats to which she was entitled by the situation.
She experienced them all to the utmost, and even
invented some new ones. She, and Edith quaked
together.

It was so awful not to know anything whatever,
to be so blankly ignorant of editorial habits and

314 The One I Knew tlie Best of All

customs. How long did an Editor keep a manu-
script before he accepted it, or put all the stamps
on with a blow and sent it back? Did he send it
back the day after he had read it, or did he keep
it for months or years ? Might one become old
and gray without knowing whether one's story
was accepted or rejected ? If he accepted it,
would he send the money at once or would he
wait a long time, and how much would it be when
it came ? Five dollars — ten — twenty — a hundred?
Could it possibly be as much as a hundred ! And
if it could be a hundred — oh ! what things could be
done with it, and how every body could live hap-
pily forever after !

" I could write one in a week," the Small Per-
son said. " That would be four hundred dollars a
month ! Oh ! no, Edith," breathlessly, " it couldnt
be a hundred ! ' This was because it seemed im-
possible that any one could make four hundred
dollars a month by her stories and really retain
her senses.

She felt it was better to restrain such frenzy and
discipline herself by putting it as low as possible.

" Suppose it is only about a dollar," she said.
" I'm sure it's worth more, but they might be
very stingy. And we want money so much-
we are so obliged to have it, that I suppose 1
should be forced to let them have it for a dollar
and even go on writing more."

And So She Did :i>

«j »j

" It couldnt be as little as that," said Edith.

" It would be rather cheap even for me," said
the Small Person, and she began to laugh a little
hysterically. " A dollar story ! '

Then she began to make calculations. She was
not at all good at calculations.

" The magazine costs two dollars a year," she
pondered. " And if they have fifty thousand sub-
scribers, that would make a hundred thousand
dollars a year. They haven't many stories in each
number. Some of the magazines have more
than fifty thousand subscribers ! Edith," with a
little gasp, " suppose it was a thousand dollars ! '

They vibrated like pendulums from light-head-
ed ecstacy to despair.

" They'll send it back," she said, in hopeless
downfall, " or they'll keep the stamps and they
won't send it back at all, and I shall wait weeks,
and weeks, and weeks, and never know anything
about it. And all this thinking and hoping and
contriving will have gone for worse than noth-

ing ! '

She ended with tears in her eyes, half-laughing
at herself because they were there, and she was
an emotional Small Person, who had also a sense
of the humor of her own exaggerations. She was
a creature who laughed a great deal, and was
much given to making her sisters and brothers
laugh. She liked to say ridiculous things and ex-

316 Tke One I Knew the Best of All

aggerate her views of a situation until they be-
came grotesque and she was obliged to laugh
wildly at them herself. " The family's Ups and
the family's Downs ' were a source of unbridled
jokes which still had a touch of usefulness in them.

" I laugh instead of crying," she used to say.
4< There is some fun in laughing and there isn't
any in crying, and it is ridiculous in one way."

She made many of these rueful jokes in the
days that followed. It seemed as if these were
months of days and the tension became more
than was bearable. It is likely that only a few
weeks passed.

But at last — at last something came. Not the
manuscript with all the stamps in a row, but a
letter.

And she and Edith and Mamma and Edwina
sat down panting to read it.

And when it was read they could not under-
stand it !

The letter was not preserved, but the memory
of the impression it created preserved itself.

Somehow it seemed strangely vague to their
inexperienced minds. It began — thank God — by
praising the story. It seemed to like it. It
plainly did not despise it at all. Its sole criti-
cisms were on the unceremonious abbreviation of
a name, and an intimation that it was rather long.
It did not say it was refused, but neither Edith

And So She Did 317

nor the Small Person were at all sure that it meant
that it was accepted, and it said nothing about
the Remuneration.

" Have they accepted it? " said the Small Per-
son.

" They haven't rejected it," said Edith.

" They evidently think it is rather good," said
Mamma.

" I don't know exactly what they mean," the
Small Person finally decided, " but I believe it
has something to do with the Remuneration."

Perhaps it had, and perhaps it had not. Per-
haps greater experience might have been able to
reach something technical in it they could not
see. They read and re-read it, thought and rea-
soned, and invented translations. But the only
conclusion they could reach was that perhaps Re-
muneration not being the Editor's object, was his
objection, and that he thought that by adroit en-
couragement and discouragement he might ob-
tain the prize without the Object.

So after a little waiting the Small Person wrote
to ask for its return. In after years she was fre-
quently puzzled by her memory of that first letter.
She never knew what it had meant. Experience
taught her that it was curiously unbusiness-like,
and inclined her to believe that in some way it
was meant to convey that the objection was the
Remuneration.

318 The One / Knew the Best of All

Then the story was sent to another Editor.

" I'll try two or three times," the Author said
to Edith. " I won't give up the first minute, but
1 won't keep on forever. If they don't want it,
that must mean that it isn't good enough."

The story — whose real name was not " Miss Des-
borough's Difficulties," but something rather like
it — was one she had planned and partially written
in her thirteenth year, in the Square. One or two
cherished scenes she had written in the old ac-
count-books. Many years later, on being ex-
humed from among old magazines in the Con-
gressional Library, and read again, it revealed
itself quite a respectable, but not in the least strik-
ing, story of love, estrangement, and reconcilia-
tion between a stately marvel of English young-
lady beauty and good-breeding, and the stalwart,
brave, and masculine British officer, who was
separated and suffered with her in high-bred dig-
nity and fine endurance. It was an evident-
though unconscious — echo of like stories in Corn-
hill^ Temple Bar, and London Society. The Small
Person had been much attached to these periodi-
cals. Its meritorious features were a certain real-
ity of feeling in the people who lived in it, and a
certain nice quality in the feeling itself. How-
ever trifling and romantic the plot, the officer
was a nice fellow and a gentleman, the beauteous
English maiden had good manners, and her

And So She Did 319

friends, the young-married people, were sympa-
thetic and sweet-tempered. It moved with some
dramatic touch and had an air of conviction.
Otherwise it had no particular qualities or origi-
nality.

Did months elapse again before they heard
from the second Editor — or was it years? Per-
haps it was only weeks, but they contained sev-
eral protracted lifetimes.

And then ! Another letter ! Not the manu-
script yet !

" SIR : (They were immensely edified at being
called Sir.) Your story, * Miss Desborough's Dif-
ficulties,' is so distinctly English that our reader
is not sure of its having been written by an
American. We see that the name given us for
the address is not that of the writer. (The Sa-
maritan friend had lent his name — that the mail
might evade the Boys.) Will you kindly inform
us if the story is original ?

" Yours, truly," etc.

This was the letter in effect. It would be im-
possible to recall the exact words.

Shaken to the centre of her being the Small
Person replied by the next mail.

" The story is original. I am English myself,
and have only been a short time in America."

320 The One I Knew the Best of AIL

The Editor replied quite promptly :

" Before we decide will you send us another
story ? "

How they were elated almost to delirium !
How delighted Mamma's smile was ! How the
two unliterary ones exulted and danced about.

" It will be Accepted ! It will be Accepted !
It will be Accepted ! ' they danced about exclaim-
ing.

" Perhaps the Editor will buy them both ! " said
Edith. " That will be two instead of one ! '

The Small Person went up to the raftered
room positively trembling with joy and excite-
ment. The Editor did not believe she had writ-
ten her own story. He would not believe it until
she wrote another. He would see ! She would
show him !

The little cat lay curled up in her arm for three
days, seeming lulled by the endless scratching of
the pen. She said nothing, but perhaps in some
occult feline way she was assisting. The Small
Person's cheeks blazed hotter and hotter. She
felt as if she were running a race for life or death.
But she was not tired. She was strung up to the
highest and intensest pitch. The Story was good
to her. Her best beloved, who had stood by her
all her vivid short life — making dull things bright
and bright things brilliant — who had touched the
face of all the world with a tender, shining hand

And So She Did 321

-who had never deserted her — did not desert
her now. Faithful and dear fair shadow of
things, how passionately she loved it ! In three
days the new story was finished. It was shorter
than " Miss Desborough," but she knew it was as
good, and that the Editor would see it was writ-
ten by the same hand. But she made it an Ameri-
can story without a touch of English coloring.
And the grapes had brought enough money for
more postage-stamps.

She did not walk for the next few days — she
danced. She chased about the woods wildly,
gathering more flowers and leaves and following
more birds than ever. Sometimes when she went
to the hollow in the road she felt as if she might
be lifted from her feet by the strange exhilaration
within her, and carried away over the variegated
tree-tops into the blue.

Her stories were of some use after all. They
were not altogether things to be laughed at be-
cause they were Romantic. Somehow she felt
almost as if she were vindicating and exalting a
friend who had been kind and tender, and yet
despised. Ah, how good it was ! If all would go
well — if she might go on — if she need be ashamed
no longer — but write openly as many stories as
she liked — how good to be alive ! She was so
young and ardent, she knew nothing and believed
everything. It might have been arranged by Fort-

322 The One I Knew the Best of All

une that she should get the fullest, finest flavor
of it. When the answer came they were passing
through one of " the Family's Downs." That
was their manner of describing the periods when
everything seemed at its worst ; when even the
Boys, who were robustly life-enjoying creatures
wished " something would turn up." Nothing is
more trying than to feel that one's sole hope is
that " something may turn up." The something
usually turns down.

And on one of these days the Letter came.
Standing by a table in the bare little room, the
Small Person opened it with quivering hands,
while Mamma and Edith looked tremblingly on.

She read it, rather weakly, aloud.

"SiR:xWe have decided to accept your two
stories, and enclose payment. Fifteen dollars for
' Aces or Clubs,' and twenty dollars for ' Miss Des-
borough's Difficulties.' We shall be glad to hear

from you again.

" Yours, truly," etc.

She gave a little hysterical laugh, which was

half a gasp.

« They— they've accepted it," she said, rather
obviously to Edith, " and they've sent me thirty-
five dollars."

" Well, my dear," said Mamma, quite tremu-

And So She Did 323

lously, " they really were very nice tales. I could
not help thinking so."

" They are Accepted," cried Edith, quite shrill
with ecstasy. " And they will take more. And
you can go on writing them all your life."

And just at that moment — as if it had been ar-
ranged like a scene in a play, one of the Boys
came in. It was the elder one, and rather an inti-
mate of the Small Person, of whom he was really
quite fond, though he considered her Romantic,
and having a strong sense of humor, his witticisms
on the subject of the stories had been well worth
hearing.

" What's up?" he said. "What is the matter
with you all ? '

" Come out on the Porch," said the Small Per-
son.

Why she was suddenly overwhelmed with a
sort of shyness, which embraced even Mamma
and Edith, she could not have told.

" Well," he said, when they stood outside.

" I've just had a letter," said the Small Person,
awkwardly. " It's — it's from an Editor."

"An Editor!" he repeated. "What does that
mean ? '

" I sent him one of my stories," she went on,
feeling that she was getting red. " And he
wouldn't believe 1 had written it, and he wrote
and asked me to send another, I suppose to prove

324 The One I Knew the Best of All

fv^

I could do it. And I wrote another — and sent it.
And he has accepted them both, and sent me
thirty-five dollars."

" Thirty-five dollars!' he exclaimed, staring at
her.

And So Sh-e Did 325

" Yes," she answered. " Here's the check."

And she held it out to him.

He took it and looked at it, and broke into a
good-natured, delighted, boyish laugh.

" Well, by Jove ! ' said he, looking at her, half-
amused and half-amazed. "That's first -class,
isn't it? By Jove!"

" Yes," she said, " it is. And they want some
more. And I am going to write some — as many
as I can — a whole lot ! '

And so she did.

But she had crossed the delicate, impalpable
dividing line. And after that, Life itself began,
and memories of her lose the meaning which at-
taches itself to the memories of the Mind of a
Child.

THE END.

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